


The Long Fall

by InFamousHero



Category: inFAMOUS (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Violence, Drama, Dystopian, Gen, Gritty, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18626506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: There were a lot of things Kassidy Macgrath needed in her life and being turned into a human lightning rod definitely wasn't one of them. Empire City is going to hell in a handbasket, gangs are running rampant, drugs are turning people against each other, a plague is spreading, and the government isn't doing a damn thing about any of it. She knows she has to do something, that's what the powers are for, but will she be the same person she was at the start when this is all over?TL;DR: Queer female Macgrath. More focus on trauma. Rewritten aspects of certain characters and plot beats.





	1. Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> This work is for personal amusement and indulgence as a reflection of how I've grown up still loving this game for the last ten years even as my tastes shift.

“Lookin’ good, Kassidy.”

The words came and went with the ringing of her ears. An electric crackle, a rush of air by her head, and she opened her eyes to the sight of shattered concrete and fire. Her first breath was ragged, painful, the gasping struggle for air of someone freshly revived—she tasted blood.

Kass twitched, and the movement sent white-hot pain skittering through her body. She clenched her teeth, screwed her eyes shut, and she could hear people screaming. Terrified, painful wailing she’d never heard before, cutting the air like the baleful cries of dying animals.

She couldn’t remember what happened, how she got here— _why_ she was here. Her thoughts were a broken morass of imagery, street lights and stop signs, the smell of the sea mingling with car exhaust and the crisp cold sting in the air. Then brightness, terrible, painful _brightness_ that burned into her skin and drowned out everything else.

She pressed her hands against the ground and opened her eyes, slowly pushing herself onto her hands and knees.

A crater surrounded her, a massive, smouldering _crater_ of broken asphalt and crumbling buildings. Water pipes sprayed into the air, sizzling against the red hot rubble and burning wreckage of vehicles caught in the blast. Between the smoke tinging the sky red and the thick smell of burned meat hung the pungent stench of ozone.

Pushing to her feet felt as if she was fighting her own body. Every nerve was buzzing in a raw, painful way, pins and needles stabbing down to the bone and drilling through them.

“Hey, you down there!”

A voice—helicopter blades beating overhead. Kass blinked and lifted her head to see an unsteady chopper above her, squinting when the searchlight hit her eyes. The voice continued, “raise your arm if you can hear me!”

She grimaced and lifted her arm, a hot lead weight attached to her body. She dropped it quickly. “If you can move you need to get to the bridge and hurry! We can’t reach you!” The chopper moved on quickly; it couldn’t remain stable in the hot air.

Casting a glance around her, Kass couldn’t see anywhere safe to move, just the little ‘island’ she woke up on rising above the fiery wreckage of what looked like five city blocks.

A hint of salt carried on the wind, cutting through smoke, boiling sewage and the stench of burning bodies, and she pushed herself towards it.  Salt meant the sea, sea meant the Fremont bridge—she had to reach the bridge.

She slipped. The rubble shifted out from under her foot, and she tumbled head over heel. Trying to break the fall she reached out and grabbed a cable—it sparked. Her whole body seized as electricity snapped through her system, ungrounded, uncontrolled, racing through her body from fingers to toes and back again.

Kass screamed and opened her hand. She went flying and crashed into a pile of loose asphalt, gasping for air. It took her a moment to realise she wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t even worse off for it. She sat up, staring at her hands and the swinging cable, still sparking menacingly with live current.

She scrambled to her feet, unwilling to give it any more thought.

Trudging across the blasted landscape left her sweaty and covered in equal parts ash and dust, all of it working on getting in her eyes and making her burns even more painful. Kass focused on her feet and where she was putting them, one in front of the other, one at a time, letting the pain slip into the fuzzy edges of her awareness while she focused so heavily on just getting herself out of there.

Finally reaching the edge of the crater, Kass shuffled out onto an intact street right on the harbour’s edge. Ambulance and police cars were everywhere, and people staggered towards Fremont Bridge holding themselves or others, terrified, bloody, wailing. Police yelled instructions over a loudspeaker, directing everyone towards the Neon.

Kass stumbled, light-headedness making her desperate to reach safety before it could stop her. But something felt _wrong_ as she approached the bridge. Her nerves jittered, and the smell of ozone snaked into the air again, wrapping around her like a noose. Her arms buzzed like a thousand wasps were trying to escape from her bones, stinging, stinging, _stinging_ —she lifted them. Her arms were _crackling_ , bands of electricity racing across them. She flailed her hands as if to flick it off herself and stumbled back, hitting a police car. She put a hand on the bonnet to steady herself. The car exploded. She flew and hit the edge of the bridge; fresh burns coated her legs and back. Someone screamed, ‘terrorists!’ and a mad rush of people swarmed the bridge.

Kass couldn’t breathe, she staggered to her feet, and her vision swam with dizziness. The electricity cracked off her body and hit those closest to her, setting their clothes on fire, throwing some to the ground.

She tried to run, force her body to move, but she could only manage a hasty, stumbling lurch. Each time the power pulsed through her body she jolted and caught herself, listening to the screams of those around her as more and more people were hurt by whatever the _hell_ was happening to her.

A clap of thunder sundered the air behind her and Kass screamed, finding the strength to run for the Neon. Something heavy and mechanical crashed on the bridge, sending bits of metal everywhere. A torn helicopter blade spun through the air and impaled the person running in front of her, a short, wet crunch of the ribcage. They fell, and Kass kept running.

“Kass! Kassidy!”

Trish, Trish’s voice cut the air and Kass struggled to see straight. Her strength was fading fast, and she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, forcing herself to stay awake just a little longer, just a little longer…

She could see them, Trish and Zeke waiting for her, the latter with his gun drawn, and the former waving her arms.

The jitteriness faded, the buzzing stopped, and Kass made it the last few feet before all the strength left her body. She fell mid-step, collapsing on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and the last thing she heard was Trish calling her name

 

* * *

 

Four days. All it took was four days for a city of modern-day people to devolve into absolute anarchy. Within hours people started turning up sick. Some died on hospital doorsteps bleeding from the eyes, nose, ears and mouth, others convulsed so violently their necks broke, and a handful had the merciful luck to fall into a coma and go out in their sleep. But most suffered for days, languishing in overflowing hospitals and clinics, or slowly dying at home when there wasn’t room—injuries piled up. People got shot, stabbed or beaten half-to-death in the burst of violence that overtook the city, and the panic hit hard when the government swept in to shut access in and out of the city to contain the ‘biological threat.’

Kass was out for most of it, sliding in and out of consciousness while Trish worked feverishly to keep her alive. She went off like a human sparkplug the two times she was lucid, freaking out Trish and startling Zeke. It wasn’t enough for Trish to have lost her sister in the blast, she had to watch her girlfriend seize and convulse, and scream in pain while _lightning_ shot out of her hands. Kass almost slipped away the first time. Her heart stopped for seven minutes before Trish managed to revive her.

Zeke put on a brave face, citing that Kass was always a tough one, and made sure Trish got enough food and rest.

The second time came through a haze of pain killers as Kass lay half-asleep, watching Trish nap in the chair nearby. She remembered how they met, a tired, worn-down Trish coming to the bar after long night-shifts, needing a shoulder to lean on and vent about it to. Kass always made time for her, offering pep talks and advice while she handed over drinks. She was a good woman, genuinely cared about helping people even if the job was slowly trying to kill her. Empire didn’t have enough funding for a lot of things.

Kass almost didn’t go for it, sure Trish was wonderful, but she was a _nurse_ , and Kass was just a college dropout, a bike courier when she wasn’t taking night shifts at bars. She made ends meet, but it wasn’t a luxurious life by any means. But that didn’t seem to matter to Trish, just that Kass was kind, and listened to her problems.

In that moment of quiet recollection, it happened again. Kass’s hands started to spark, a little at first, then crackling bands of rolling electricity. She yelled in fright, startling Trish and Zeke awake again.

Without any expertise or guidance to rely on, figuring out the powers was a lot of trial and error, a lot of electronics got unintentionally fried, she set fire to her clothes more than once, and there was the incident with Zeke’s handgun. Strange and terrifying as it was, the powers were something she could focus on, grapple with while the city tore itself apart.

People roamed with weapons and makeshift armour, tried to get on with their lives with a sense of imminent threat hanging over everyone. Supplies were running out, hunger was setting in, and with the gangs making everything worse it was a recipe for mistrust and violence.

If the plague, the quarantine, the rioting, the Warren going dark, and gangs of assholes stalking the streets wasn’t enough of a nightmare, then the rumours of abductions and cult behaviour certainly clinched it.

The Neon had the worst of it when it came to drugs. There were plenty of little circles, groups of dealers, but one group stood over them all; the Reapers. A dramatic name but considering most people who fucked with them ended up face down in a gutter it was accurate.

They wore red hoodies with white flaming skulls on the hood and peddled all kinds of substances, but ever since the Blast they started exclusively spreading a new drug called ‘nekter.’ More people seemed to join the gang every day, painting black and white skulls on their faces, strutting about assault weaponry instead of just knives and pistols.

It didn’t long for them to crush the riots, forcing a tense sort of calm to fall over the Neon as they claimed for themselves.

Kass just tried to keep her head down, stay of sight while she helped Trish with her work and learned to master her new abilities. It became intuitive the more she tried, natural, even instinctual, like some sub-conscious part of her already knew all this, she just had to unlock it.

Just as well, because if things didn’t get back to normal soon, she might have to use them…


	2. A Good Look

“Nice, you got it workin’!” Zeke called from the ‘living room’ side of the apartment rooftop, waving her over from his vantage on a couch that had seen better days. Hell, everything here had seen better days, from the jury-rigged batteries and chipped furniture, to the ramshackle fencing and ‘misplaced’ mannequins Zeke used to trick people into thinking the place was crowded.

Kass doubted that many people were tricked by it, but no one had come and kicked the doors in so she guessed they were just lucky.

She walked over to the couch and leaned on the back, eyeing old TV held up by a stack of empty crates.

“Anything?” she asked, and Zeke flicked to the local news station.

“—citizens of Empire city will be receiving support around the clock. This morning marked the second consecutive week of delivering food and medical supplies to the quarantined populace. Hang in there, Empire City, we’re here to help.”

It switched to a weather report, and Kass blinked slowly. “ _Second_ week?”

“That’s horseshit! They haven’t dropped any—”

A loud, booming rumble took their attention to the sky where the massive bulk of an air freighter roared overhead, the bellowing reverberations of its engines rattling every loose object on the roof and thrumming through the body.

Zeke got up from the couch as it passed, staring in its direction of travel towards the Neon’s centre. “It’s been two weeks you god damn pencil necks!” He yelled after it, cussing further under his breath. “Fuckin’ PR stunt—around the clock support my ass.”

Kass patted his shoulder. “Hey, at least it’s something. We need that food.”

He sighed heavily. “I know, I know, Uncle Sam just better not expect me to thank him for it though. They should’ve done this way sooner.”

He was right, of course. They ran out fresh food only a couple of days into the quarantine. While Trish was preoccupied with keeping Kass alive, she made Zeke run to the nearest store and haul back as much canned and dried food as he could before everyone else got the same idea. And now they were running low on that too. Kass didn’t want to see another bowl of rice and beans for the rest of her life, but food was food right now, and her stomach rumbled at the idea of some variety.

The TV let out a peal of beeps and white noise that had quickly become very familiar since the quarantine started. Replacing the weather report was a skinny young man with a red bandana hiding his face, dubbed the TV Jacker in casual conversation but he called himself ‘The Voice of Survival.’

“Just got word that the Government dropped some relief packages into Archer Square. The liars in corporate media wanna tell us that we’re going to get our fair share, that more is coming? Yeah, that’s easy for them to say! They’re not the ones living in this hell hole, and the truth is we’ve been abandoned, and no one’s coming to save us.”

Kass couldn’t help but grimace as he spoke, not that she disagreed. Talking so grimly might be honest, but she wondered if it was helpful to everyone’s morale, people were so down and stressed enough as it was.

“—et that food before the Reapers show up. Voice of Survival, out!”

She blinked and looked at Zeke. “Well, let’s get going then. I’ll see you ground side.”

Zeke sent her a jealous pout. “Ah, come on! You get to have all the fun.”

She grinned cheekily and walked over to one of the few unobstructed edges on the rooftop. “Enjoy the stairs!” she called and casually stepped off the building.

The discovery was completely accidental. Kass missed a jump she thought she’d be able to clear with her newfound strength. The near fortnight of messing around and trying out her powers made it increasingly clear that whatever happened to her made her physically stronger, quicker, and much tougher. But when she slipped and fell it felt like the air shifted around her as she met the ground and the impact just rippled through her with no effect other than a cloud of dust.

She landed on the pavement with much the same effect and dusted herself off. The stitched holes in her jacket were holding up nicely, and she made sure her messenger bag and repaired phone were secure.

A stiff breeze brought with it a melange of uncollected garbage and harbour air. Kass wrinkled her nose and propped her hands on her hips, waiting a couple of minutes before Zeke emerged from the stairwell and jogged over to her, out of breath. “Come on, man, the food won’t wait forever.”

* * *

 

A stream of people accompanied them to Archer Square, most with bags, backpacks, carts, anything to let them carry as much food as they could get away with. Kass tried not to get her hopes up, it was just the one plane after all, and they couldn’t have fit _that_ much food on it.

A buzz from her phone distracted her and seeing the ID was Trish she clicked it on. “Hey, babe, you okay?”

“Yeah, did you hear they dropped some food?”

“In Archer, Zeke and I are heading over there now. Want anything special? I could check for milk duds?”

She was just trying to be light, maybe make Trish smile a little on the other end, it’d been days since she last smiled.

A tiny laugh rewarded her, more surprise than anything, but Kass could hear the little smile in Trish’s voice. “They’re not going to drop candy, Kass.”

“Won’t know ‘til we get there.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, better actually. I think I’ve gotten stronger, I can fry Zeke’s ‘militia’ pretty good, and I’m way better with those shockwaves now. I think I’m also a little indestructible.”

Trish’s voice turned cautious. “What do you mean?”

“Well, not totally, I think I can still be hurt. It’s just that I don’t seem to have any problem with falling. I’m okay. I promise I’m fine, but I slipped during a jump a few days ago and fell, and nothing happened. I sent up some dust and rolled right back to my feet with nothing broken. It was weird.”

“That… you’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m _fine,_ I’m still freaking out a bit, but I feel healthy, I promise.”

“If you’re sure, just take it easy, okay? After what happened to Amy, I-I couldn’t…”

Hearing the pain in Trish’s voice made her slow down, made her wish she was on the other end. “I know, and you know I’m here, whatever you need.”

“I know. See you guys at Archer Square. I love you.”

“I love you too. Stay safe.”

They finally rounded the last corner into Archer and Kass cursed under her breath upon seeing the food drop. The Archer pavilions were as open a space as they were going to find in the Neon, but they still managed to tangle the parachute on the statue. The large container it was attached to hung awkwardly off one of the arms and seemed to have broken one of the artisanal arches circling it.

Climbing the stairs up to the pavilions Kass got a better look at the drop and put her hands on her hips, sighing. “For fuck’s sake,” she muttered. It was _well_ out of reach.

Zeke rubbed his chin, staring at it. “Think you could climb up there? You’re the only one who’d live from a fall like that.”

She could certainly try. It wasn’t like the police would fine her, hell, who would snitch? Someone free climbing the statue was the least of their concerns right now, and she certainly didn’t _see_ any cops nearby.

Taking a running start, Kass scrambled up the statue base as quickly as she could while Zeke got people to clear the space below. Her climbing had definitely improved overall; the extra strength and speed made her far more agile than she already was and climbing up to the food proved no more complicated than balancing on one leg.

She looked down when she was close, mostly to see that it was clear down below, and spotted Trish talking to Zeke. Trish glanced up, and Kass smiled, waving down at her, getting a wave in return. “Alright,” Kass called, “stay clear!”

It was easy enough to burn the parachute, and the container tumbled to the ground, taking off a corner of the statue base and breaking open when it crashed into the ground. Smaller crates spilt out, and people hurried to open them, waving away the dust it sent up.

Kass crouched on her perch, eyeing the damage to the statue base. “Eh, good enough,” she murmured.

A dash of red caught her eye, and she looked down the stairs she and Zeke climbed where a pack of Reapers were quickly ascending. “Shit,” she hissed, glancing at the far ends of the pavilion where more Reapers were arriving. She stood and cupped her hands around her mouth to yell, “get out of the way! Reapers!”

Gunfire cut the air, those who didn’t move at her call scattered as warning shots chipped the ground and the Reapers moved with intimidating confidence towards the food.

Static buzzed along the back of her neck, and Kass clenched her hands. Enough was enough.

She leapt from the statue and electrified her body on the way down, feeling her weight shift mid-air. Kass landed feet first and let off a much stronger shockwave, throwing the first group of Reapers off their feet with a clap of thunder.

Pain burst into her side like an ice pick, three bullets, one of them passing right through. Kass yelped and spun to her right, throwing lightning bolts at the closest culprits. She hit one Reaper in the chest twice and hit another in the head. They crumpled to the ground, twitching, smoke rising from the impact points.

A shot slammed into her shoulder from behind, glancing off the bone. Hot blood spilt beneath her jacket and she turned only to see the first group was getting to their feet. Kass lunged at the nearest Reaper before he could lift his gun at her. Her fist met his face with a crack of thunder. He dropped.

A bullet sliced through her calf from the left. Another hit her thigh. More missed her than not but it burned, Christ did it _burn_.

The two in front of her were scrambling to attack. One fumbled with a shotgun. Kass knocked them both down with a shockwave and jumped on the shotgunner, kicking the weapon away. They twisted, tried to reach it, but she grabbed their head and smashed their face into the ground with a hard crunch and an electric shock for good measure.

A body crashed into her, the other Reaper. He cracked her across the face with the stock of his rifle, releasing a flush of hot blood from her nose. Kass slapped her hands to his abdomen and released another shockwave. He went flying and cracked his head against a lamppost.

More bullets chipped the ground near her, and she scrambled wildly, throwing herself behind the nearest solid thing she could see. Sinking behind a stone bench she looked around for something electrical, letting off sensory pulses.

A Reaper vaulted over the bench, shotgun in hand. Kass ground her bloody teeth and fired two bolts into the Reaper’s head, leaving smoking holes where his eyes used to be. His whole body jolted and flopped to the ground. Nausea swelled in her throat, and Kass did her best to shake it off.

Looking over the top of the bench revealed two Reapers left. One of them made a run for the food, and Kass lifted her arm, hitting them with two body shots. Upon seeing that, the last one turned tail and ran.

Kass sagged against the bench, sighing heavily. Her heart felt like it was trying to hammer its way out.

Trish’s voice called out, “Kass! Kass, where are you?”

Grunting, Kass hauled herself over the bench and rolled into an awkward sitting position. “Here!” she huffed, pushing to her feet. Trish hurried towards her, a picture of barely contained distress, and a knot of guilt twisted Kass’s stomach. “I just need to drain something,” she said, putting a hand on Trish’s arm.

Trish said nothing and helped her towards a lamppost, going into ‘nurse mode’ at the sight of blood. She let go once Kass could touch it. The now familiar buzz surged up her arm and into the rest of her body, concentrating into tight bundles on the bullet holes. Punctured muscle sucked back into place, pushing the foreign material out in a series of wet pops and clinks.

Kass doubled over, her stomach lurching into her throat. Saliva gathered quickly in her mouth, and she swallowed hard, pressing a hand to her lips. She heard Trish whisper, “Jesus,” and glanced to see her crouching over the collection of bloody bullets on the ground. Reaching for one Trish frowned deeply and seemed to think better of it.

A tremor went through her belly, and Kass grunted, wiping her face. Trish looked at her, and the frown quickly softened. “You’ve done enough today, Kass. You should sit down. Zeke and I will get what we need for all of us.”

Shouting took their attention back to the crates. People came back to get their food now that the Reapers had been sent packing but with so few of them opened two men were fighting over one.

Kass clenched her teeth and ran for the scuffle. “Hey!” she yelled, ignoring Trish’s call behind her. “Stop!”

A flash of metal was all the warning anyone got before one of the men fell to the ground, bleeding from a hole in his stomach. The knife-wielding man turned just in time to take a hard punch to the face. He flailed and tried to keep his balance, but Kass just punched him again, laying him out. The knife dropped from his hand, and she kicked it far away. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?”

She glanced over at the wounded man. Trish was already on him, digging through her bag for saline.

“Get the fuck back!”

“You’re taking too much!”

Another brawl—Kass turned only for a gunshot to cut the air. She flinched, staring at the young man on the ground, bleeding out from his head. He didn’t look much older than her, one eye reduced to a visceral, weeping cavity.

She swallowed hard and looked at the one who shot him. An older man, shorn head, scruffy beard, standing with three other people and at least six crates gathered behind them. “This shit is ours!” he yelled, waving the gun around and forcing other people to back away. “If you don’t want to die then get running!”

Kass eyed his friends. They only seemed to have bats and other close quarter weapons. The thought of getting shot again made her guts twist in a slimy knot, but this wasn’t right. “Come on, man, there’s only so much food here,” she said firmly, catching the murderer’s eye, “everyone needs their share.”

Cold eyes narrowed at her, and he sneered, “who says, you? I’m not letting some freak decide shit for me.”

Zeke’s voice interrupted from somewhere behind her. “Hey, fuck you, man, don’t talk about my friend like that!”

The man lifted his gun at Zeke and Kass fired off a bolt without thinking. The gun exploded in his hand, sending bits of flesh and finger everywhere. He fell back shrieking, holding the mangled remains of his hand while it bled all over him. His friends tried to advance, but Kass threw them back with a shockwave. They scrambled after that, taking their supposed leader and the two boxes they could grab.

Bile swelled in her throat, and Kass exhaled slowly, wiping a hand down her face. She glanced around, frowning at the nervous looks she was getting from the few people that didn’t scatter from the sudden violence. Most looked away and continued frantically stuffing food into their bags.

Rubbing her face, Kass left out another deep breath and started packing away food of her own. Zeke followed suit, complaining about tinned prunes as they got more of the crates open. Kass didn’t feel picky, grabbing some prunes, tins of spam, a pack of plain crackers, and a few other less than ideal items she wouldn’t consider eating normally.

Kass wasn’t sure what she expected. More dried, instant meals, maybe tablets to purify water, just in case. There were no emergency rations, MREs or the like. She looked at what she had so far and chewed the inside of her cheek, wondering how long it would last.

Her eyes drifted to the dead man, and she tried not to think about it too hard, getting to her feet. She noticed Trish was finished stabilising the stabbing victim and had moved on to getting food in her bag and helping others do the same.

Taking a deep breath only calmed her nerves so much, and Kass walked over, trying to shake it off. “You okay?”

Trish sealed her bag and stood, smiling stiffly. “Yeah,” she sighed, “I just wish it wasn’t this bad.”

Kass opened her arms, and Trish automatically took the hug, ducking her head against Kass’s shoulder. Kass turned her head and kissed Trish’s temple. “We’ll make it,” she murmured. They stood that way for about a minute, taking what little time they could to decompress from a situation that seemed more out of control by the day.

A familiar series of beeps filled the air of Archer Square, drawing everyone’s attention to the big screens surrounding it. Ordinarily they were filled with advertisements and the occasional crucial news alert, but instead, the TV Jacker stood bristling with the same righteous energy as before.

“Take a look at this Empire City!”

The image shifted from him to a shot of—Kass blinked, dumbfounded. “The image you’re seeing was taken by a security camera near ground zero!” It was a picture of her, standing with a strange ball of glass and metal, glowing with bright blue light between her hands. She had a mesmerised, confused look on her face, head cocked, eyebrows pinched—but it was definitely her.

A sinking feeling gripped her stomach, and the Jacker focused on her face, making sure everyone watching could get a good, long look at it. “This is the woman that destroyed our city, our lives! If someone from your family died, well now you know who to blame! If you know anything about this woman, let me know, ‘cuz we’ve gotta get the word out on this terrorist! Whoever she is, we’re going to make her pay!”

Trish pulled out of her arms, and Kass slowly looked at her, staring at the wide-eyed, horrified look on her girlfriend’s face. Pain blossomed deep in her chest, and she reached out only to watch Trish take several steps back.

Trish wasn’t talking, and the silence felt like a guillotine hanging overhead.

Kass could barely breathe, her legs trembled, threatening to buckle. “I didn’t do this,” she whispered, slowly shaking her head, “I didn’t do this.” The floor was falling out from under her, trying to strike her down with vertigo and nausea, and Kass struggled to stay still, afraid she would make Trish run away. “I...I don't recognise that package," she stumbled over the words, pressing a hand to her heart. "I don’t know what it is. I didn’t do this, Trish, I swear.” She was begging, she knew she was begging but it wasn’t enough. She could see in Trish’s overflowing eyes that it wasn’t even nearly enough.

Trish didn’t say a single word in response. Her expression settled into numb resignation, eyes focused on the middle distance as she simply turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [reclining on a plush chaise lounge] I am a lesbian of simple tastes, gaze upon my works and behold.


	3. To The Slaughter

The cold earth gave Kass almost no respite as she sank amidst a thick grouping of buses in Memorial Park. She let the scent of damp soil distract her from the wet, coppery tang of her blood, however little it helped. It was creeping onto the back of her tongue, and she swallowed, wincing when her throat ached.

It spread like a summer wildfire, the image of her at ground zero and the wild, terrible rumours that followed. Posters of her face sprang up within hours, labelled ‘terrorist’ in big block letters. Either someone had nothing else to do or that TV Jacker fuck was ready for his big exposé and wanted to make sure it stuck. The day turned into a gamut of abuse and attempts on her life, and her jacket was starting to show it after being shot at least a couple dozen times since that broadcast.

Kass tried to pretend as if nothing had happened, hoping no one recognised her that quickly, but within an hour she had to start running from angry mobs calling her a monster, a terrorist, a murderer—any label they could think of to best vent their fear, anger and grief. The rumours swirled about what kind of devil she must be, who she was ‘working for’ and what they wanted, how heartless she was to destroy so many lives. People threw the names of the dead at her feet in a litany of condemnation, and she couldn’t find the space to breathe.

All Kass could think about was the look on Trish’s face.

This group got lucky and cornered her just long enough to get a good beating in.

Kass rolled onto her side and peaked out from under the bushes. There were a couple of people nearby but no one who looked agitated or on the lookout, so she crawled out of her temporary shelter and limped to the nearest lamppost.

Reddish electricity jumped from the post to her hand, smoothing out the bruises and cuts lining her body. She frowned at the colour because it looked purple earlier and she thought it was a trick of the light at the time, but she couldn’t deny it was changing colour. She stared at her palm, wondering it was as simple as her mindset or if the power itself had gone weird on her.

Sighing deeply, Kass shook the thought from her mind. She had to keep moving before another group got lucky.

With no more mobs in sight she continued onto her intended destination before she was attacked; Stampton Bridge.

* * *

Zeke’s obvious discomfort walking up to her was just another gut punch on the day’s list. He was her best friend, he knew her longer than Trish, and he’d been giving her weird looks ever since that masked fuck called her a terrorist.

At least he showed up at all. That had to count for something.

“Stampton Bridge, the fastest way out of town,” Zeke started, smiling nervously. He gestured at the blockaded bridge across the street from them where two lines of heavily armoured riot police stood shoulder to shoulder at the gate. A shipping container sat in the road, stopping anyone from just ramming the blockade if they felt like it, but that didn’t stop a desperate crowd from gathering.

Zeke put his hands on his hips. “If not for the baton-wielding goons, of course,” he said, eyeing her.

“We’re getting out of here,” Kass muttered, “I don’t care how.” She marched across the trash-strewn road, and Zeke quickly followed her.

Gathered on the ramp leading up to Stampton Bridge, hundreds of people shouted their discontent at the unmoving riot police. Kass slipped into the crowd and kept her head down, slowly moving close enough to get a better look at the police. They had batons but other than the riot gear itself she couldn’t spot any other weapons.

“We’re dying in here, you bastards!”

“Let us out already!”

“We need more food!”

Observing the crowd, Kass could see that some had bats and other melee implements, pipes, wrenches, a few had pistols on their hips or tucked in back pockets, but most were unarmed and just angry at the shitty situation. The armed ones seemed ready for a fight, most had bandanas like the Jacker, some wore eye protection, and a lot of people had hoods.

The crowd roiled around her, continuing to shout and jeer while the police held their ground. Kass wondered what was going through their heads, if they were afraid, or if they were just as indifferent to the city’s plight as the rest of the world seemed to be. No one seemed to know how bad it really was and these men and women were getting a good, close look at it.

She wondered what they were paid to keep their mouths shut.

Kass slipped off her damaged jacket and stuffed it into her bag, securing it around her hips to keep it out of the way. A glance at the ground revealed a chunk of brick nearby, so she bent and picked it up, weighing it in her hand. It was solid.

She looked at Zeke. His eyes flicked from the brick to her face, and he nodded, resting a hand on his pistol.

With a deep, grounding breath, Kass turned towards the police and threw as hard as she could. The yelling died down for only a moment, just long enough for the chunk to arc through the air and smash against the helmet of the middlemost officer. The crowd erupted, and the people surged forward, taking Kass and Zeke with them.

She fought with electrified punches, releasing shocks directly into the police officer’s bodies to avoid splash or accidentally hitting people in the frenzy. A few cracks of gunfire went off. Most of it was plain and simple beating the police into submission or unconsciousness, whichever came first, and it was over quicker than Kass expected.

There was a gate closing off access to the rest of the bridge and Kass approached it with a scowl. She eyed the lever to open it and threw it. To her relief, the gate lifted, and the riot pushed through.

The rest of the bridge was a maze of containers, sandbags and caltrops everywhere, with more police armed with riot guns in between it all.

A voice came over the loudspeaker, warning them to stop, to return to the city, that lethal force would be utilised if they didn’t fall back. It was too late for that; the riot had momentum despite the obstacles and Kass made it easier by pressing ahead and taking out the police herself. Whatever her reputation was to Empire City seeing her in action didn’t seem to matter to the crowd—maybe they saw her as their ticket out of this mess.

Whatever the case, Kass opened the second gate to the sight of two canisters rolling to a halt on the asphalt, billowing white vapour into the air. The front of the riot sank back as it hit them, coughing, sputtering, wiping their eyes, and Kass clenched her jaw.

She held her breath and ran forwards, scooping up both canisters and throwing them off the bridge one after the other. A burning sensation assaulted her eyes. She ground her teeth, electrifying her whole body to burn off whatever remained in the air around her. “They’re not fucking stopping us!” she bellowed, charging, and the riot hollered at her back, rushing to follow her.

More riot police stood in their way. Kass took all the attention, distracting the pigs until they noticed the rioters too late and sank under the swarming blows.

“This is your final warning!”

Kass glared at a nearby loudspeaker and fried it.

A third gate loomed at the half-way point of the bridge and Kass took a couple of steadying breaths before she threw the lever.

The rioters hurried through, Kass followed, ready for more fighting, and all that greeted them was a sheer metal wall of barbed wire, barriers and long gun barrels. At least a hundred people were already through. Kass opened her mouth, but her voice was drowned out by the eruption of heavy machine gun fire. A hail of bullets ripped through the foremost rioters and red _painted_ the asphalt.

Heads and limbs flew, splattering those nearest in gore. Terror filled the air in screams and smells, blood and urine soaked the ground, and the surge of people collapsed inward. Those at the front tried to flee only to find themselves trapped by a wall of bodies at the gate still trying to push forward. Blood sprayed across her face, and Kass flinched, watching a woman fall next to her with a torn open neck. The woman clutched at her gushing flesh, fingers slick and crimson, uselessly trying to stop the flow. Too much white was showing, her wide-eyes bored into Kass and blood bubbled out of her lips.

Bullets crunched through skulls, punched through flesh, wet rips, fearful wails, and the splattering of thick ejecta from every body that hit the ground, it was too much to take in all at once.

Kass looked wildly for Zeke in the chaos. Another body went down next to her and a bullet sliced through her arm. She flinched, ducking down amongst the panicking masses.

Finally, she saw Zeke barrel through the crowd, running for the fence that kept them from simply jumping off the bridge to escape. He rammed into it, no, into a _gate_ , and took the damn thing off its hinges. There was a decontamination unit hitched the side of the bridge with its door open, but Zeke disappeared between it and the bridge. There was a gap.

Two more bullets slammed into her side, one in the shoulder, one in the hip. Kass scrambled out of the dying tangle of people, her feet and hands slick with blood and other fluids. She made for the opening, nearly tripping over the bodies, taking another couple of bullets, but she reached it. She jumped across and into the unit, rolling to a halt.

The hatch closed behind her, and the sound of gunfire and screaming fell away, leaving her in the dark with only her heavy breathing and a thundering heartbeat. Kass remained on the ground, curling in on herself and clasping a hand around her throat. She tried to swallow the rising nausea, to breathe through it, but her breaths came shallow and shaking, and she emptied her stomach of bile.

Pain burned in her chest, and she slowly pushed herself upright, struggling to move her limbs accordingly. They felt heavy and numb, and she could swear they were shaking, but she couldn’t see shit.

“Kassidy Macgrath.” A woman’s voice addressed her and Kass stiffened, unsure where it was coming. “I’ve been expecting you.”

A light turned on overhead, and Kass squinted, blinking her vision clear. There was a serious looking woman in front of her, sitting behind a thick observation window, wearing a business suit and an earpiece. She was older than Kass, had to be government by the looks over her, and that just made Kass feel like a rat in a trap.

Swallowing hard, Kass tried to push the image of what just happened out of her mind and focus her thoughts, but that was easier said than done. “What is this?” she barely managed a breathless mutter.

The woman tilted her head. “My name is Moya, I work for the FBI, and if you want out of this mess, you’ll want to listen to what I have to say.”

“What… what do you want with me?”

“I’ve seen footage of you, the ‘electric woman,’ and figured someone like you wouldn’t appreciate being cooped up. So I came here to wait and here you are. What I want is your help, and in return, you get to leave and have your name cleared of all charges.”

The words nearly knocked Kass senseless, and she struggled to find a legible response. The words fled from her, so she simply nodded.

Moya opened the folder on her lap and pulled out a picture of a short-haired, clean-shaven black man. “Before the blast, my husband John was assigned to infiltrate the First Sons…”

* * *

“…and it drains neuro-electrical energy.”

“I knew it!” Zeke kicked back on the couch, slapping his knee with a self-satisfied look on his face. He didn’t look worse for wear after his dip in the harbour but seeing him out of his favourite jacket was an unusual sight. It’d take a while to dry.

Zeke swept a hand through his hair. “All the stuff I’ve been sayin’, every word is true. Government’s in cahoots with a secret organisation, the Ray Sphere…” he paused, whistling, “damn, it all makes sense now.”

Kass slowly shook her head, arms crossed. “Can we focus?”

Zeke sat up on the edge of the couch, giving her a serious but somehow excited look. “That Ray Sphere must dish out powers to anyone controlling it,” he said, frowning and rubbing his hands together. “You gotta bring it back here.”

That made her raise a brow. “And what, hide it under the couch?”

Zeke opened his mouth, but she lifted her hands to make him pause. “Look, you need to sleep this off, maybe have a bath if you’re not feeling the seaweed and fish cologne. I’ve got things to do.”

Without another word, she hopped off the rooftop and dusted herself off when she hit the ground. She wasn’t lying, she had things to do, places to be, but it didn’t make her feel any less stuck as she started heading towards the first set of coordinates Moya sent her.

It was enough to survive that god damned _massacre_ on the bridge; it was another to have someone essentially wrap a noose around her neck and threaten to yank it if she didn’t cooperate. That Moya didn’t even mention the people on the bridge or seem to care—Kass felt the sting of bile in the back of her throat. She stopped and leaned against the wall at the mouth of an alley, taking deep, grounding breaths.

She had never seen people die like that before. It was nothing like movies or video games, neither of those could fully capture the raw, visceral _pulp_ of a body coming apart, the flash of yellow-white fat as skin split and blood began to pour. And the sounds, the _sounds_ people made rattled around her head the entire way back.

The Reapers under the bridge distracted her from thinking it all too much, but that was _another_ thing to worry about, what the Reapers were doing to the water. Isolating it most likely, if she had to guess, and that didn’t bode well for anyone.

Being tracked and listened to wasn’t something she needed. She already felt exposed from the morning’s broadcast about her ‘crimes,’ and now a fucking government agent was pulling her choke-chain.

Kass took one final, deep breath and straightened. It was what it was. She couldn’t do anything else but keep moving forward and hope there was a light at the end of the tunnel.


	4. No Forgiveness

Nightmares ruined what little sleep she got over the last couple of days. Dreams of the blast, of people trying to kill her, of Stampton, and the worst were the ones where Trish was involved, either leading the angry mobs or strapping Kass down to a table and slicing her open with a scalpel.

She decided to nap instead. Either that or drain to give herself a boost of wakefulness when sleep tried to creep up on her.

Roaming the Neon at Moya’s behest left her scrounging for a collection of replacement clothes. Between the Reapers and the angry masses, her pants and biking jacket quickly became little more than tattered rags.

The latest attempt left a ring of bruising on her neck until she healed. An ambush of citizens who boxed her in and used a damn catch-pole to stop her from climbing out like she was some kind of dangerous animal. They used it to yank her off the wall, tightened it when she hit the ground—she electrified it, frying the person holding it. Shockwaves and bolts cleared enough space for her to pull the cable from her neck and run.

She left a lot of injured people behind. Some of them weren’t moving, and she wondered if she had killed them.

Attempts to make things better seemed to wash off the general public like water from a duck’s back. After Stampton her reputation as a monster seemed more credible than ever, especially after the TV Jacker spread the word about her involvement with pictures of the dead and dying, and her amongst it all. He seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere, and his voice began to jar her whenever it came on, hounding her in the quiet moments.

_“She led these people to their deaths, used them as shock troops to try and escape the mess she made! She has to be stopped before anyone else suffers!”_

She couldn’t decide if she disagreed or not. They were warned, but she didn’t believe it, didn’t expect the force to be that overwhelming, that absolute. Even if the threat were real, some of them could have slipped through the cracks. But there were no cracks, just a dead end and nowhere to run when the guns roared to life.

Still, people asked for her help, whether they were just that desperate or they simply hated the Reapers more than they did her. Furthermore, having such a dire reputation attracted a particular type of individual. Being asked to kill criminals and assholes the police couldn’t, or wouldn’t, deal with was undoubtedly better than getting shot at or called a monster.

So Kass ran from borough to borough, clearing out Reapers where she could or disrupting their operations when she couldn’t fight them directly. She found herself enjoying the fights, not the pain that came with it but the release, the violent _venting_ of stress and anger at the situation she found herself in. Then came the healing, the expulsion of lead from her body, again and again, swallowing the nausea that came from feeling metal push and pop out of torn flesh, the subtle hiss and sizzle of skin fusing back together.

She had to endure it. She had to if she wanted to survive.

* * *

Brandon Carey, Brandon Carey—she ran the name through her mind over and over as she slipped into the alley Moya directed her to. It opened into space where people could park their cars off the street. Trash was everywhere as usual, and an abandoned sixteen-wheeler sat to her centre right. Walking around the end of it revealed a corner of trash bags, broken crates, and the crumpled body of a woman.

Kass swallowed and approached it, eyeing her surroundings just in case someone tried to spring a trap. She opened Moya’s channel on her phone.

The woman lay face down in a pool of blood, shot in the back of the head and left where she fell. She wore a thick lavender coat for the cold, a heavy, floral skirt and tights with black boots.

“Carey’s not here,” Kass said, kneeling over the woman with a deep frown. “There’s a dead woman though, looks like she was shot.”

Static buzzed across the nape of her neck and Kass tilted her head, smelling a hint of ozone in the air. She reached down to brush the woman’s hair out of her face. A charge shot up her arm as soon as her fingers made contact.

Fractured, kaleidoscopic imagery flew through her mind, events from someone else’s perspective. Alien fear and desperation hit her like a kidney shot. The Reapers grabbed Brandon by the arms, hauling him away from his wife, they screamed for each other, reaching, _reaching,_ but he was gone, they took him, they took Brandon and now—the gunshot ripped through her mind. Kass flinched away from the body, holding her eyes. “What the fuck?!” she yelped, fighting to calm her breathing.

“What just happened?” Moya’s voice was stern.

Kass breathed deeply, blinking in an attempt to banish the images from her sight. Only she couldn’t clear all of it. There was something taking shape in front of her, an ephemeral figure of shimmering light, like a hologram, or a ghost, she couldn’t decide. It began moving away from her, and she lunged to her feet, following it out of the alley. “I…I saw something, a vision, a memory? The Reapers took Brandon, that was his wife, Lynnae.” She turned sharply and jogged to keep up with the figure leading her across the street to a different alleyway. “I can see a person leaving the area. They’re not a solid though. It’s like they’re, it’s like that impression you get when you stare at something bright for too long and blink? But it’s three-dimensional and moving on its own. It’s fucking weird.”

To her credit, Moya didn’t sound in the least bit thrown by that. “Follow it. We need to find out what happened.”

Kass clicked off the channel and continued following the ghost, echo, impression, whatever the hell she was supposed to call it, and just focused on convincing herself she hadn’t cracked.

The ‘echo’ wound its way through alley after alley, like it didn’t want to be seen and Kass wondered what the Reapers wanted with an electrician. Most likely answer was to exert control over the Neon, force people to obey if they wanted power and water, solidify themselves as the only authority.

The TV Jacker did another one of his broadcasts only an hour ago, blaming her for increased Reaper activity. She’s the one riling them up, fighting them in the streets and getting people caught in the crossfire. He would probably blame her for the situation getting worse if she _didn’t_ fight them. She couldn’t seem to win.

A call from Zeke interrupted her thoughts, and she answered with a distracted, “I’m in the middle of something, what is it?”

“The Feds, Kass, that’s what’s up.”

She rolled her eyes but gave him an ‘uh-huh,’ to let him continue. “Watching our every move, even caught one scoping out the roof. Was leaning against a wall down there eatin’ a _fresh_ apple. Asshole’s got some balls knowing how bad this shit is, they could get fresh food in here if they wanted to but they ain’t.”

“They don’t care, what else is new?”

“Kass, C'mon, think about what this means for you or us! They’re gonna ride you as long as they can, but the second you’re no longer useful, BAM, you vanish. Permanently.”

“And you have a better idea? Do you think I _want_ to be out here getting shot by every motherfucker with a gun? What am I supposed to do, Zeke?”

“I don’t know, yet. But I’m workin’ on it.”

Kass sighed and clicked the call off. She couldn’t afford that kind of conversation if the echo were leading her somewhere dangerous, and if she knew the streets as well as she thought she did, it was leading her to the Neon’s above ground substation. Rounding the final corner, it did indeed take her to the station, surrounded by barbed chain link fences and old industrial buildings. The echo ran in amongst the metal forest of wires, transformers and circuit breakers, and Kass stopped following it just in time for a Reaper to step out from behind a breaker.

She fired immediately, sending the Reaper to the ground with a smoking face. Others quickly came to his defence. They managed to get a few good shots in before Kass took them down as well, working her way through the station until she could reach the control building at the back.

Knocking the last Reaper off their feet with a crackling uppercut, Kass sagged and spat out a wad of blood. Pain burned in her gut, two tunnels of torn flesh shifting with her movement. She hissed, straightened and put her hand on a nearby transformer, draining enough to heal her body.

She looked at the control building, a small square wedged against a larger building it didn’t belong to. It was a ‘shack’ more than anything. And it’s door was open. It was dark inside.

Something started to let off a string of sparks inside.

Kass frowned and hurried towards it.

The shack exploded, sending pieces of clapboard and sheet metal everywhere and throwing Kass off her feet. She hit the ground hard, struggling to breathe in as the air rushed from her lungs. A crushing sensation closed around her temples and the base of her skull, like a band of metal tightening around her head in time with her pulse.

Kass gasped and immediately grimaced, her hand falling on the shard of metal sticking out of her hip. She looked down, squinting when it shifted in the wound. It was small and only a couple of inches into the meat, but she could feel the tip scratching bone.

Moya remotely activated her channel to ask, “what the hell happened? The entire Neon just went dark.”

Trying to swallow her discomfort, Kass wrapped her hand around the jutting shard. “Reapers just blew up the control building, fucked up the station here.” She yanked the metal out and snarled, “fuck! Fuck, and my brain feels like it’s in a vice,” she hissed.

Moya didn’t sound in the least bit concerned at her obvious pain. “Your body must be reacting to the absence of electricity. You’re going to have to tough it out and find Carey. If we don’t restore the power, the Reapers will be unstoppable.”

A few seconds to collect herself was all she could afford. Kass grunted, got to her feet, and reached out with her senses again as she’d done so many times to find nearby live electricals. The resounding silence she got as the pulse bounced back nearly sent her spinning with a mix of nausea and vertigo. But the _echo_ was still there, somehow. She wondered why it was the only one, why there weren’t thousands of overlapping echoes left from everyone who recently passed through the area, but it was really all she could do to follow the damn thing and hope it didn’t lead her into another messy fight.

Thankfully, it led her to a utility hole cover and disappeared there. Familiar territory at least, all her urban exploration experience was about to pay off in the most unexpected context possible—she climbed down.

The smell was worse somehow than she remembered. A rotten, coppery odour snaked amongst the sewage, there was always _something_ dead in the sewers, and it was usually rats or someone’s unfortunate pet. This smell wasn’t like that. It was fresher, more potent, not yet smothered by everything else.

Dropping onto wet, rust-stained brick, Kass had enough lingering power to electrify her body and illuminate her surroundings in red light. The sewer walls flickered around her, patchy with discolouration, mould, and thick, slimy algae the closer it was to the water level.

A tunnel stretched out in front of her, populated by rusty pipes that dripped periodically, pattering one after another and slowly wearing into the bricks below.

Kass tried not to breathe too deep and sighed. “All right, it took me to the sewers,” she said. She made her way through the tunnel, following old, flaking signs bolted to the walls that told her where the linear transformer was. “My guess is the Reapers needed your guy to control the power grid, make people desperate, easier to control. Like they’ve done with the water pipes?”

She emerged from the tunnel and into a new chamber where the transformer sparked and hummed quietly on an island amongst the flowing water. Kass crossed a creaking metal walkway to reach it and tilted her head, letting off another sensor pulse. “Looks like the circuit is broken.”

“Then re-establish it.”

“You… want me to complete the circuit.”

“And why not? It won’t kill you, ‘lightning woman.’”

Kass sighed and took off her bag to avoid frying her phone, just in case. She reached out and grabbed both sides of the transformer, lifting herself off the ground.

The power rushed into her body and practically danced through her entire nervous system, causing her body to bend backwards in a near perfect arch. Her eyes went white and her mind blank, filled with a rushing sensation of unbridled clarity and sudden, _instinctive_ understanding.

She gasped and dropped from the transformer, barely catching herself. She felt lighter than air, stronger than ever, and she hopped from foot to foot, struggling to keep all the energy contained.

“H-hey! Is someone there?”

Kass spun on her heel, freezing. When nothing moved she slowly put her bag back on and started walking towards the voice, holding her hands at the ready. “Hello?”

The voice called out again, drawing her towards a connecting tunnel. “Hello! Please, I need help!”

Kass narrowed her eyes and stepped into the tunnel. She didn’t need to go far, illuminating the damp space in flickering red light revealed a man curled against the wall. He wore winter clothes and held a bloody wound on his left side. Pain contorted his face into a deep grimace, and his eyes cracked open just enough to look at her.

Lowering her hands, Kass knelt next to him. “Did the Reapers come through here?”

A bark of strained laughter escaped him. “Bastards are always down here now. But yeah, yeah, they ran by with some electrician and I got spotted, winged.”

“If they’re always down here why are _you_?”

“Thought maybe I could get some of my shit back. Used to have a group here, keeping our heads down, then the Reapers got involved...”

She frowned and looked at his bloody hands. Static buzzed the nape of her neck again, compulsion gnawing on her thoughts. “Let me see,” she said, slowly reaching out a hand.

His voice turned quiet, “you… you’re that woman, aren’t you? You look like her.”

She looked him in the eye where fear and anger made their home. “I’m here to stop the Reapers, and I can help you. I can get the power back on.”

The man looked at her outstretched hand and sweat beaded on his brow. “Just… just don’t hurt me, please,” he murmured and turned his head away. He lifted his hands off the wound with a strained whimper, letting it weep anew.

The compulsion came back stronger, pushing Kass to place her hand over the wound and concentrate a tightly bound charge in the centre of her palm. She released it into his body, and he flinched, gasping. His flesh contracted around the bullet, pushing it out into Kass’s hand and closing behind it. The spot looked more like a vicious scrape than a bullet hole.

His head whipped around, looking at her, then at himself. He prodded the former wound, an expression of confusion and alarm dominating his scraggly features. “Holy fuck,” he whispered.

Kass stood and offered her hand to pull him up, which he took after a moment’s pause. “What’s your name?”

“Colin. Yours?”

“Kass.”

He nodded slowly, “okay. Yeah. Alright. The Reapers went this way.” He turned without waiting and moved deeper into the tunnel. Kass followed quickly, staying quiet so she could listen to the sounds of the sewers and anything that shouldn’t be there. Pipes dripped along with their footsteps on the damp brickwork, groaning and creaking when the pressure shifted. A distant rumble overhead reminded Kass that people were still using their cars and she wondered how long that would last. They had to be running low by now.

Tiny claws scraped stone, and Kass eyed a rat passing them by, pressed against the wall, pausing a second or two to sniff a discoloured part of it and scurrying on. It wasn’t an unusual sight by any means, and it made her stomach twist into knots anyway. If the situation didn’t let up, it would take no time at all for the pests to overpopulate and flood the surface, bringing with them a fresh wave of disease.

The Warren already knew full well the threat posed by rats, finding them in toilets, cupboards or even beds was a common story out the slums there.

Emerging into a larger tunnel junction, Colin held up his hand, kneeling. Kass followed suit and gave him a questioning look. He pointed straight ahead at an old security gate that must have resembled new iron at some point in its life but had long become a patchwork of rust and staining. The glow of firelight poked through the grating, as did the sounds of chanting.

She frowned deeply and asked, “what is that?”

Colin’s mouth creased in a grim line. “My group. We were in a bad way when the Reapers came to us. They offered to share food, water, and meds, even to protect the kids, if we joined them.”

“They weren’t serious.”

“They were.”

Kass balked, looking at the gate again. “What happened?”

Colin hung his head, sighing. “Like I said, we were desperate. One after another everyone took one of their black pills, but not the kids. I didn’t so I kept my head down, tried to just stay out of the way, out of sight. A day later the Reapers brought in crates of food and water, but no meds. Didn’t need ‘em, everyone who was sick or hurting became fit as a fiddle overnight so they didn’t care. They were… different.”

“How?”

“It was just the eyes at first, the whites went black and whatever colour they’d been before got replaced by this hot-metal looking shade of orange. The Reapers started ‘inducting’ them, painting skulls on their faces, talking about the ‘Dark Queen’ or the ‘Dark Mother.’”

“They sound like a cult more than a gang.”

Colin scoffed, “no shit.”

She gave him a once over, noting the normal colour of his eyes. “They run you out?”

“Yeah, after they all took a second dose I couldn’t hide anymore. It was like they could sense it. After all the crazy shit that’s going on I figure they must be connected, hive mind or whatnot. Makes sense why their numbers exploded after quarantine.”

“You said second dose, do you know how many they have to take?”

“Three. That chanting you hear is them finishing up.”

Kass swept a hand over her head, rubbing a tight spot on the back of her neck. “I’m sorry.”

Colin gave her a tired look. “Yeah, I’m sure you are. Look, the Reapers took your electrician through there, and they won’t open the door for you. But they should for me if I say I’ll join them.”

She straightened, glancing at the gate again. Colin continued, “I don’t want to live like this. I miss my brother. So I’ll get the way open for you and you better run like hell.”

“Won’t that put you in danger?”

“Maybe.”

Kass shook her head. If Colin’s goal was to get himself killed she didn’t want to take part. Seeing where Brandon was taken, however, allowed her to mentally map detours to reach the same location. It would take a longer but it wouldn’t putting the man at risk—but she wondered what he was going to do otherwise. Join the Reapers, the same goons terrorising the Neon. The same people offering to protect people’s kids and feed them, if they joined.

What an insidiously effective way to recruit.

Exhaling slowly, Kass got to her feet and eyed the tunnels running perpendicular to the chamber. “If you want to see your brother again, that’s your business. But I’m not going to get you killed just because you can’t live with joining the Reapers.”

When silence was her answer she looked down at Colin, who had his armed wrapped around his chest. His face wrinkled in a grimace. “Thought I was a braver man than this,” he muttered, “a better man.” He roughly wiped a hand down his face, looking at her. “Thought you were supposed to be some heartless monster.”

She flinched, clenching her hands. “I’m not! I fucked up but I’m not a monster.”

Soft chanting filled the silence between them, rising and falling in a smooth, undulating rhythm. She could pick out the words if she listened carefully:

 

_Dark Mother, Dark Mother_

_We weep for your despair_

_We are your children, your weapons_

_We bring your wrath to bear_

_Oh Mother Darkness_

_We’ll bring the pigs to slaughter_

_For you, we have no fear_

_Through Hell and high water_

 

Kass rubbed her brow. Despair, wrath, and slaughter—she couldn’t being to wonder what any of it meant, if it meant anything at all.

The grind of boots against brickwork took her attention back to Colin, getting to his feet and straightening his coat with a sober air of finality hanging around him like a black cloud. “I guess I’ll see you sometime,” he said flatly, before walking towards the gate.

She almost grabbed his shoulder. Almost. Instead, she bit her tongue and ducked out of the junction through another tunnel, a detour. She heard the gate open behind her, Colin talking indistinctly to someone, and the gate closed not long after. She didn’t look back to check if he was inside or not and focused on navigating the tunnels.

The buzzing of her phone interrupted her traversal, and she clicked to answer. “Hello?”

“Hey,” said Zeke, sounding reluctant to continue even as he did so. “Trish just stopped by and grabbed some of her stuff. She barely talked to me, and when I brought you up, whew, she damn near blew a gasket.”

A hard lump tried to block her throat, and Kass hung her head, closing her eyes tightly. “She thinks I killed her sister, Zeke, what did you expect?” she asked hoarsely.

Zeke was quick to respond, ready to jump to her defence. “C’mon, ain’t your fault that package was a bomb—hell, you’re lucky to be alive. She needs to see things for what they are.”

Kass slowly shook her head, trying not to picture Trish’s horrified face and failing. She clicked the call off, roughly wiped her eyes, and continued making her way through the tunnels.

* * *

“Hey! Who—who are you?!”

Kass brushed herself off from the climb and spied Moya’s lost contact behind the last security gate to the substation. Brandon looked about as panicked and restless as she expected from his situation, and he brandished a crowbar despite the barrier between them. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, scowling. “Did they see you?”

“Relax, Brandon, I just need to turn on the substation.” She approached slowly, holding her hands up in a manner she hoped he would see as harmless.

He stepped half-way back, wariness dominating his features. “How do you know my…I-I can’t do that! The Reapers have my wife. They will _kill_ her if I let anyone in here; I can’t risk that!”

A thread of pain lanced through her heart and Kass swallowed thickly, to bury her empathy for the man or the words she had to say, she couldn’t tell. She took a deep, grounding breath and spoke calmly. “Look, Lynnae is already dead, Brandon. The Reapers shot her as soon as they took you away.”

She may as well have slapped him. His jaw dropped, and he took another half-step away from the gate. “Wh—how do you know her name? Oh god, no, she can’t be, she can’t!” Tears welled in his eyes, and he curled a hand into his hoodie over his heart. “Fuck, fuck!” he yelled, turning away and swinging the crowbar against a nearby railing, easily breaking the rusty metal.

Kass clenched her jaw and stepped up to the gate. “I’m sorry, but I saw her body myself. The Reapers need to be stopped. Help me do that, please.”

His shoulders shook briefly, but he coughed, roughly clearing his throat and wiping his face with his free hand. “God,” he croaked, “I’m so sorry, Lynnae.” He took a deep breath and turned back to the gate, approaching it to put his hand on the switch.

Then Brandon looked at her, intently, a good, long, lingering look at every detail of her face, and Kass’s stomach dropped when he spoke, “it’s you.” He pulled his hand away from the switch, wet eyes glaring at her through the crosshatch shadows of the gate. “You’re the terrorist that blew up our city; you caused all this!”

The sheer _venom_ in his voice nearly made her look away, a sense of guilt and shame clawing at her spine. She found her voice enough to retort, “the Reapers are the ones who killed your wife, not me.”

He snarled, “they came to power because of you! If you hadn’t set off that fucking bomb, we wouldn’t be here! Lynnae would still be here!” Grief twisted his features again, and he pressed a hand to his mouth, turning away. “God, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted them.”

Kass moved closer, putting her hands on the gate. “Look, if you don’t let me in this’ll happen to more people, more families. Do you want that?”

He swung around and slammed the crowbar against the gate, forcing her to jump back. His eyes glared again, dark and flinty, and his voice became a cold growl. “It’s harder for you up there isn’t it? Why else would you come down here trying to get the power back on?”

“I’m trying to _help_ damn it!”

“Yeah, like you ‘helped’ the people on Stampton? I know people who died on that bridge, fuck you!”

Another call distracted her and Kass grunted, stepping away to answer it with an annoyed, “what?”

It was Moya, and her voice came through calm and clinical.

“The power _has_ to come back on if we’re going to gain ground against the Reapers. We can’t do that if he doesn’t cooperate and let you in. _Deal_ with him. This is bigger than one person.” Moya clicked off before Kass could answer and she slowly clipped her phone back into place.

Swallowing the cold tangle in her throat, Kass spoke as calmly as she could muster. “The power needs to come back on, Brandon, not for me but for everyone on the streets trying to get by. Do you really want to make life worse for them?”

She turned back to find he was still glaring at her. “No, but I’ll keep it off as long as it takes for the Reapers to kill you. _Then_ I’ll bring it back on.”

Moya’s words rattled in her head and she clenched her hands, thinking about how much harder it would be to deal with this shit show if the power remained off. Nearly impossible, really, considering how it felt topside.

Kass lunged at the gate, swinging an electrified fist at the old, weak metal. She released a blast that shattered most of it and vaporised the weakest sections, throwing Brandon off his feet and making a hole large enough for her to climb through. She ran past him and onto a creaking walkway over turbid waters, taking her to the offline substation in the centre of the chamber.

She hurried around the back of it and grabbed the power box on the side. She fed all of her stored electricity into it, bringing it to life with a whirr of fans and humming of power. It wouldn’t restore everything without the surface station in working order, but it _would_ breathe energy back into a portion of the Neon, and she reckoned the same would be true with other substations.

A clatter brought her attention back to reality and hurried around to the front where Brandon stood jamming a crowbar into a panel. He tried to wrench it open, determined to try and fuck her over for all her wrongs.

She rushed him with a gut punch before he could get far. The crowbar cracked her around the head, and her vision spun, leaving her open to being kicked over. She landed on her back and tried to jump to her feet, only for Brandon to climb on top of her and stab the crowbar into her chest. The metal punctured deep, jarring the ribs it sank between and piercing a lung. Kass gasped, blood rushing into her airways. She panicked and reached for the nearest electrical source to heal herself—her hands landed on Brandon.

She drained him like any other source, sucking the life from his body in a rush of power that lit up every nerve in her body, heightening her senses into razor-sharp focus. Her sealing flesh forced the invading metal out of her body, and Brandon shuddered and gurgled, nervous system burning out, eyes, nose and ears oozing blood until he finally flopped lifelessly on top of her.

Kass scrambled out from under him, breathing hard, short breathes, trying to understand what she just did. She just _drained_ a living person, and with a terrible flush of icy horror, she realised it had felt _good._

She vomited, staggered to her feet, and sprinted for the exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never understood how just killing Brandon from the other side of the door that he claims to have jammed shut magically opens said door like it was on some kind of dead man's switch.


	5. Enter, The Queen

The last bullet dropped out of her arm.

Kass leaned on her knees, staring at the metal ejecta scattered around her feet, each piece of misshapen lead and broken copper jacketing wet with her blood. It was one thing to get bloodstains on her pants or sheets, she’d long since grown ambivalent to that aspect of her life, but it was another to have clothes ruined by persistent combat. Bullet holes and blood oozing from wounds again and again—yet Kass could feel herself slowly growing numb to the sight of it already. She shouldn’t be, it _shouldn’t_ become normal, but everything was so out of control that she couldn’t take it in.

Kass shook her head. She wanted to lie down, nap, and have a moment to herself. Her run on the second substation left her feeling jittery, but at least she got another power out of it.

Regardless, Moya already had something lined up as soon as she emerged from the sewers. Something was wrong with the water at Smith Fountain. Strangers in red hoods shared it with civilians, spouting strange and hopeful promises, how much it would improve their lives and bring them purpose. It sounded like Reaper activity, though, until now they stuck to spreading their influence through their pills.

Finally coming back to herself, Kass got a move on, heading towards Memorial Park. Smith Fountain lay on the other side, and the Park seemed bereft of people, a little strange for midday but safer for her. It wasn’t until she passed through the arcade at the centre that she realised why.

A crowd of at least two dozen people met her on the other side, midway through a march around the park where they had enough space to freely voice their displeasure with Empire City’s situation, with _her_.

Kass tried to backtrack, but the crowd spotted her immediately. There were cops amongst them, the rest had bats, pipes, guns of their own, and she was unprepared.

“It’s her!”

“Terrorist!”

The police fired, catching her twice in the chest and stomach. Kass doubled over and threw herself back inside the arcade, sinking behind the edge of a pillar. She clutched the holes in her body, blood seeping between her fingers.

Used to be every month or so the arcade became a place of community, people set up stalls, bringing crafts and food to buy. Others would play music for tips, and some would sell character sketches. Kass enjoyed it every time, made a lot of fond memories here, some of them she made with Trish.

Now bullets hit the ground by her hiding place, sending dust and chips of stone flying. Cries of ‘murderer’ and ‘monster’ echoed off the dome glass ceiling, and Kass blinked the sting from her eyes.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” she yelled. She could hear the crowd advancing, either they didn’t hear her, or more likely they just didn’t care.

She had to stand and fight, or run, so she tried to run. She pushed to her feet and ran the way she came, only for someone to lunge into the arcade entryway and swing a bat at her face. She spun to the ground, blood spraying from her lips as her teeth lacerated the inside of her cheek. Kass grunted and tried to move through the disorientation, hands and brow propped against the cold ground.

The bat came down on her ribs, and the crowd came closer. Another blow, her shoulder, and the jeering voices nearly surrounded her.

With a scream and clap of thunder, Kass surged to her feet, wreathed in red bands of electricity. She punched the woman attacking her in the chest and sent her flying into the crowd— _she was surrounded_. Kass bellowed, “leave me alone!” and let off the strongest shockwave she could, throwing everyone off their feet. The nearest fell to the ground smouldering, others twitched like panicking insects, and those furthest away sprawled on the grass winded.

Kass ran as soon as she could and quickly reached the edge of the park. She leaned on her knees, breathing heavily, shaking—she dry heaved.

A scream slithered up from the bottom of her throat, and she swallowed it, smothered it with a hand over her mouth. It wasn’t the time or the place.

Wiping the sweat of her shaking hands off on her pants, Kass took a breath, straightened herself out, and marched towards Smith Fountain. It sat just across the street up a set of wide stairs to a public area with tables and benches and flanked by a café and a bar. Grab a coffee and sweet treats in the day, cross over for alcohol and pretty good bar food at night, it was a nice area to hang out once.

Kass wrinkled her nose upon reaching the top of the stairs, hit with a cloying medicinal smell in the air. At least a dozen people slouched at the chairs and tables, some of them sprawled on the ground, rocking, writhing in apparent delirium, and a few laid slumped over the edge of the fountain, hands languidly splashing in the water.

The water in question flowed almost black with an oily sheen. It smelled faintly of molasses when Kass approached it: molasses and wintergreen. The taste of sarsaparilla lay on her tongue, and she swallowed, frowning. The smell of it hung around her like steam in a windowless bathroom, swirling around her head even as she tried to wave it away.

Coughing, she opened her channel to Moya.

“What’s going on there?”

“It’s… weird. The water in the fountain is dark and smells kind of like cough syrup or sarsaparilla. There are people all over the place, but they’re out of it.”

“In what way?”

One man groaned on the ground, eight feet away, and Kass turned to look at him. He was young with a rough beard he wasn’t able to take care of, matted by dark stains around the mouth and chin. His eyes rolled up towards her, black and orange. He grinned loosely, a drunk, far-away grin, his teeth smeared with dark, tarry liquid.

“ _Drink_ , friend…” he said in a high, euphoric tone of voice. “Drink in Her blessing, become one with the Queen. Bask in her wrath, come…” he trailed off, a low, tremulous laugh rising deep from the bottom of his chest.

Kass opened her mouth to explain, but a bout of laughter from the other side of the fountain took her attention from the phone. “Hold on,” she said, clicking off.

“Sir, please, I need you to focus on me!”

Kass stopped dead at the familiar voice, the familiar _figure_ of Trish kneeling over a much older man with the same inky stains around his mouth. Trish wore a medical mask and a pair of safety goggles, but Kass knew it was her.

She managed to get some bottled water into the man’s mouth, and Kass carefully approached, her stomach twisting in a hard knot.  She cleared her throat, and Trish glanced up only to double-take, brow immediately furrowing into a stony, icy glare. It felt like being punched in the kidney and Kass took half a step back, lifting her hands in a gesture of placation.

Trish slowly looked down at the man.  Most of the clean water was slipping back out of his mouth, and she sighed, closing the bottle and putting it aside. She was quiet for another five seconds before shaking her head. “What are you _doing_ here?” she asked through her teeth.

The pain was a cold flare in her chest, and Kass resisted the urge to drive the heel of her hand into it. Instead, she blurted out her answer. “Moya wanted me to see what’s going on with the fountain.”

That got her another glare, and she winced. “Who’s Moya?” Trish nearly snarled, and it set Kass’s stomach on fire. That wasn’t fair—that wasn’t fucking fair.

She clenched her hands, scowling. “I get you don’t want anything to do with me right now or ever, but I’ve never been unfaithful to you, and you don’t get to imply I was or _am_. You don’t want me, anyway! I’m the fucking _terrorist_ right!?” She threw her arm out at the fountain. “I don’t have any options. She offered me help if I investigate shit like this for her.”

Disgust curled Trish’s lips, and she shook her head again, looking down at her patient in exasperation. Kass’s anger dissipated, taking in how tired Trish looked, no doubt working herself to death as usual. Her heart bled anew, she wanted to fix it, but she couldn’t see a way forward.

She took a deep breath and continued, “ _look_ , whatever you think about me, I’m here to _help_ right now. So what do you need?”

Trish’s hands clenched and Kass half expected to be told to fuck off, but after a long moment of uncomfortable _nothing_ passed over them all Trish did was sigh heavily and relax her hands. “You want to help? Fine,” she said coolly, gesturing at a large water valve off to the side, strategically ‘hidden’ behind a small stone embellishment facing away from the fountain. “You can start by closing that valve. It’s jammed, and I can’t turn it. That’s how this crap is getting into the fountain.”

It was something.

Kass nodded and walked around to the valve, finding it encrusted with a sticky pitch-like material that smelled the same as the fountain. Making sure she had a good grip, she braced her feet against the ground and pulled. It moved half an inch and stopped, catching on something. Kass frowned, adjusted her grasp, and pulled as hard as she could.

A large glob of crusty material broke off the pipe, and the valve gave way with a suddenness that left her unbalanced. A momentary jet of black fluid hit her square in the face, going up her nose and getting in her eyes and mouth. She hacked and fell back against the railing overlooking the park tunnel ramp, frantically wiping at her face. She couldn’t see a damn thing, and her eyes watered profusely.

A cosy, cloying sensation closed around her and even when her eyes managed to clear out enough of the crap to see, the world blurred and spun out of focus in a vibrant kaleidoscope.

It was so, _so_ sweet and her tongue tingled, as did the rest of her face and her hands.

Trish loomed over her, face indistinct and voice echoing from a dozen directions. “It’s all over your eyes—I need to get a solvent from the ambulance,” she said, grabbing Kass by the shoulder. “Come on,” she sighed.

Kass stumbled while she was pulled along, haunted by a sense of vertigo yet feeling lighter than air, and she held her free arm out to keep her balance.

A heavy feeling fell around her and Kass perked, aware in some hidden pit of her mind that Trish wasn’t the only one here.

_“What have we here, the fresh face, the lost lamb, the rat in the maze? And so tender, so hurt—what has this city done to you?”_

Deep and sultry, smooth as honey, washing over her thoughts like a bubble bath after a blizzard, it was a woman’s voice, and Kass nearly fell over. “Wh-what—who a-are you?” she slurred, pulled upright by an exasperated Trish.

A full-throated chuckle made her shiver. The world flashed around her, and an otherworldly woman appeared at her side, keeping pace.

The woman’s skin was a solid, smooth and unnatural white, lined by dark red veins that resembled those of marble more than the human body. Thick, powerful tentacles protruded from her back, bulky with extra muscle and hardened cartilage at which the tentacles connected, each ending in a four-fingered set of talons.

Four solid black eyes stared at Kass from a near-alien face, with no hair to speak of but an elongated, ridged crown behind which slick, oily tendrils hanged, slowly dripping black fluid down the shoulders. Kass could only stare back, stumbling again in Trish’s grip, and her eyes dropped. The woman was naked, her body corded with muscle from shoulders to clawed feet.

Whatever the woman was, Kass knew she was dangerous. “What do you want?” she mumbled, the world still spinning around her.

The woman smiled, her mouth opening far wider than any humans’ should; a predator’s teeth lined it. _“Oh, a little mayhem, a little comfort,”_ she purred, a wicked gleam in her eyes, “ _and a lot of revenge. We want the same thing, you and I, dear Kassidy. You’ll see, soon enough.”_

In a blink, she was gone, and Kass’s legs finally gave out, sending her to the cold, hard ground just short of Trish’s ambulance. The world slipped away, and the strange woman’s voice hushed her into darkness.

.

.

.

Trish’s scrutinising face was the first thing Kass saw upon opening her eyes again.

“What the fuck?!” she yelped and jerked upright, wiping her face. It was damp from the solvent. She looked around hastily and saw she was in a parking lot between four apartment buildings, right by an ambulance. Trish’s ambulance.

Kass leaned on her knees and took a moment to breathe, gripping her hair in one hand. “Th-thanks,” she muttered.

“That’s the only time I’m helping you,” Trish said coolly, passing her by, seemingly intent on returning to the fountain. Kass didn’t say anything, she _couldn’t_ say anything, there were no words to make it right, and she supposed she should just consider herself lucky that Trish had helped her at all.

Gathering her thoughts as best she could, Kass got to her feet and opened her channel to Moya. “I…I took care of the fountain. I had to shut off the feeder pipe that leads into it.”

“Well, there are two more water mains in the area, check them out so we can narrow down the source.”

“Right.”

Coordinates sent her back into Memorial Park, and Kass kept as low a head as she possibly could, ducking through clusters of bushes, trees and hedges just in case anyone felt like round two. Thankfully, the earlier mob seemed to have scattered entirely, leaving her to reach the second water valve in peace.

It was just like the first one, encrusted with a pitch-like material and smelling of medicinal sweets. Kass turned her head away from the valve and pulled hard. It gave abruptly, but she caught herself, and while it still splashed her for her efforts, it hit her neck and went down her front instead of all over her face.

The warm, tingling sensation came back all the same, not the spinning or the vibrancy, but the warmth and the feeling that something else was with her.

_“You poor thing.”_

Kass whirled to see the strange woman leaning against a nearby tree, arms crossed, head tilted. _“To sense so much fear and pain in someone so powerful is a tragedy. You’re trying to help, but they’re afraid of you, your power. They believe the lies and slander thrown on you; even she does—how dare they?”_

She couldn’t help it, picturing Trish’s heartbreak, her horror, and Kass swallowed hard, looking at the ground.

The woman stood in front of her in the blink of an eye, lifting a solid hand to her chin which made Kass freeze, seriously questioning if the woman was real or not. _“You know you’re innocent, but they treat you like a monster. I can help you, Kassidy.”_

And then she was gone.

Kass shook herself, unsure, _unwilling_ , to give the woman’s words too much thought.

Making her way to the third valve unimpeded, Kass eyed it warily, glanced at the empty park around her, and heaved it shut too. Another splash down her neck and she slammed her fist on the valve, whirling on the woman she knew to be there. “Stop it!” she yelled.

For someone so otherworldly looking it should have impossible to smile so disarmingly, but the woman managed it and held her hands out harmlessly. _“I don’t mean you any harm, sweetling, just know that we want the same thing and that the bitch who did this to us is always watching.”_

Another blink of the eye and she was gone.

Kass swallowed hard and called Moya. “What now?” she asked, trying and failing to stop her voice from shaking.

Moya didn’t deign to care about that. “The only primary water line around there runs beneath the park and without the valves that must be where they’re pumping it in.”

Anxiety coiled tight in her belly and snarled the words in her throat. Kass swallowed again and screwed her eyes shut, resisting the urge to scream for the second time today. Who the strange woman meant by ‘the bitch who did this to us’ made her head swirl with possibilities, none of them she liked.

Moya’s voice snapped at her, “Kassidy?”

Kass cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’ll deal with it. Call you when it’s done,” she replied hoarsely and clicked off before Moya could say anything else. She just wanted this day to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It struck me that the protests/mobs looking for you in evil side quests, particularly the early ones in the Neon, are happening regardless of you. You're almost always tipped off about them by someone else for you to go find and wipe out, so it's just as likely for you to run into them narratively without warning.
> 
> Also, Sasha was 1) underutilised, 2) poorly utilised, and 3) should have used her more inhuman concept art designs.


	6. The Rescue

A sweet, wooden aroma greeted Kass when she opened her eyes, and she breathed deeply, taking in a small room of draped red velvet and plush leather furniture. Soft, warm lighting illuminated it just enough to see that she sat in a comfortable armchair, and felt more relaxed than she had in what seemed like forever.

Clean, simple loungewear covered her body, not an inch of it touched by blood, dirt or other filth.

As if someone snapped their fingers, the haze lifted and Kass straightened, struck with a needle-sharp awareness that none of this was real. Even so, the relaxing atmosphere remained, quietly urging her to accept that she didn’t need to fight her way out, yet.

Looking at the floor revealed a round black carpet atop hardwood panels, a carpet so dark that it lost all definition and seemed more like a black hole in the floor. The surface shimmered with a faint red light and bulged in the middle, rising. It grew as tall as a person and almost took the shape of one, if not for the tentacles, and the elongated crown of its skull—four black eyes opened on her.

The darkness split and wrapped around the stranger’s body like a dress and Kass swallowed, recognising the strange, alien looking woman from yesterday.

“Who are you? What is this?”

“My name, sweetling, is Sasha. You and I were hurt by the same woman, she watches constantly, and her eyes are everywhere. I’m not your enemy, but I understand why you might find that hard to believe.”

It wasn’t difficult to make the connection between this woman and the Reapers, and Kass scowled. “Maybe your minions should stop shooting at me then.”

Sasha’s lips thinned in displeasure. “Appearances must be kept. The bitch can’t know that I’m trying to help you or she’ll course correct and get what she wants anyway.”

Again, this supposedly shared enemy that Kass had no idea what to make of. She frowned deeply and sat back in her chair, tapping a finger on the armrest. “Who are you even talking about? Is it Moya?”

“ _Tch_ , the federal snake? No, she has her own agenda here I’m sure but not with Kessler, not directly. At this rate, you’ll meet her soon enough, but I need a little more time, so I’ll buy some if you’re willing to play along?”

“Wait, what do you know about Moya?”

“Not as much as I’d like, but you should know that anyone involved in the things _she_ is involved in can’t be all that trustworthy, can they?”

“Like you?”

Kass didn’t expect to make Sasha laugh, and she expected the look of sympathy Sasha gave her even less. “Everyone wants something from you, dear Kassidy,” said Sasha, holding out her hand, “but I promise on my life that what I want is for both of us to come out of this avenged and stronger for it. I can’t promise it will be easy or painless, but nothing about this situation is.”

Staring at the outstretched talons did little but leave her mind swirling with questions. “How do I know you’re not fucking with me right now? You control people don’t you?” she muttered.

Sasha was quiet for a moment and knelt, pressing a hand to her heart. “I want you to say yes under your own will, always, forcing it wouldn’t be as delicious an irony, and you’ve been through enough already.”

“The fuck is this room then?”

“A connection, nothing more, coming into contact with my nectar opened a pathway between us. We can talk without the bitch listening in.”

The glacial _venom_ Sasha used when talking about this ‘Kessler’ jarred so violently with the rest of her speech that Kass couldn’t help but ask, “what did Kessler do to you?”

Sasha’s expression hardened, and she seemed to look away, it was hard to tell with the uniform darkness of her eyes. “She used me, took my work, broke my heart and discarded me like trash,” she growled, a deep-throated hiss thrumming beneath her words. “She plans to use you as well, that much I know for certain. I won’t allow it.”

A cold ache flared in Kass’s chest, and she rubbed her face, wrestling with herself to stay on topic. “Why the drugs, the… the fucking _cult_ behaviour?”

Kass dropped her hands in her lap, meeting Sasha’s obsidian stare. There was an inhuman curl to her lips, not unlike the baring of wolf’s teeth. “Kessler has a small army at her command, better trained and armed than any paltry government force,” she hissed. Her tentacles swayed behind her, reminding Kass of cobras. “After the blast, these powers were all I had at my disposal and taking over the Reapers was tactical, at first. I didn’t know the side effects at the time, but it serves my needs.”

A heavy silence followed, pressing in from every direction until it felt like Kass was at the bottom of a pool. But she held Sasha’s stare, sitting up and leaning forward to exert some manner of dominance in this unreal space, to meet an unspoken challenge.

Sasha’s posture relaxed, and she looked away. “I do care about them, to a point. I hear their thoughts and feel what they do. I keep them fed, and I shelter their children because on some subconscious level, I see them as _mine_.” She scoffed, shaking her head. “Absurd, of course, foreign echoes in a hive mind.”

She sighed, lifting her chin imperiously. “Squirm at my methods if you must, but I’d prefer working together. Kessler _will_ come to regret the day we gained our powers.”

Kass drew in a deep breath, savouring the hint of fresh pine in the air, and spoke in an even voice, “let’s say I agree… what then?”

Sasha smiled stiffly. “I feed a morsel of misinformation to the snake, and she sends you to deal with a little mess of mine. It’ll draw eyes and ears for a moment, long enough for me to handle some delicate business without interruptions.”

“You want _Kessler_ distracted.”

“She’s fixated on your development as a conduit. She’ll be watching this for sure.”

“Conduit?”

Sasha blinked, frowning. “Ah, yes, you don’t know these things.” She relaxed and gestured between the two of them. “That’s what _we_ are, those of us with powers, conduits.”

Nodding, Kass leaned back in her seat and attempted to filter everything Sasha had said during this little encounter. She didn’t feel under duress, or as if something was influencing her, and judging from the weight that closed around her a few minutes ago there seemed to be a tell when Sasha exerted her force of will.

The Reapers were dangerous, violent, and turning people into skull-faced, gun-toting minions of a woman who looked like she walked out of Lovecraft’s kinkiest nightmares. Kass would’ve started laughing at the absurdity of it all if she thought she could just wake up from this terror and put it behind her.

It was a bittersweet wound to inflict on herself, the distant possibility of all this chaos amounting to a long, terrible nightmare that she would wake from. She was hit by a car and put in a coma, and she’d wake up to find Trish at her side. And everything would be alright.

Gentle hands landed on her knees, and Kass blinked, pulled from her thoughts. Sasha was closer, sympathy softening her inhuman face. “Kassidy, I’m sorry for all that you’ve been through, and for everything you _will_ go through before this is done,” she murmured, rubbing a thumb against Kass’s knee. “You don’t need to answer me right now. But I would like an answer soon.”

Kass straightened, wondering whether the gesture was genuine, and it _felt_ like it was, or if Sasha was manipulating her. Paranoia nipped at her thoughts, and she squashed it, grinding her teeth. “What would I have to do?”

“Nothing, yet, just follow the snake’s orders as expected.”

“You didn’t need to reach out to me like this. You could have just given Moya the misinformation and had me run around anyway.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Then why?”

Sasha tilted her head. “I wanted you to have a choice. The _freedom_ to choose your path, rather than have it dictated to you.”

A tight bundle of frustration welled up in the bottom of her throat, and Kass grimaced, eyes stinging.

Sasha lifted a hand to her cheek but stopped short, an invitation, a request, and one Kass felt hard-pressed to resist. But she turned her head away, swallowing the tangle of thorns in her throat. “We can work together,” she muttered, strangling the tremor in her voice. “For now.”

The hand returned to her knee, and Sasha’s voice was a low, reassuring murmur. “Rest well, Kassidy.”

* * *

Kass rolled off her couch with a string of grumbled expletives.

“Zeke?” she called, walking over to the kitchenette of her dark apartment to get some water. She drank half a bottle and assumed Zeke was out since he didn’t respond.

A hint of pine lingered in her nose.

Kass exhaled and shuffled off to her bathroom, hitting the light as she entered. She squinted under the glare and jumped at her reflection.

It wasn’t enough that she looked exhausted with shadows hugging her eyes and a gaunt line slowly making itself known across her cheeks. She knew she lost some weight, but there hadn’t been much to lose in the first place, and the quarantine felt longer than three weeks. The ‘long’ part of her undercut remained messily tamed in a tail, a little ragged from the blast burning the edges. If that were all, she wouldn’t notice as much, but her skin looked like it had lost colour. It was paler, hell, it was nearly _grey._

Kass stepped closer to the mirror, tilting her head from side to side and touching her jaw. She wasn’t seeing things—there _were_ markings on her neck.

She stripped off and inspected the rest of her body, finding the same markings from the neck down. Dark, fractal patterns the likes of which she remembered seeing in a picture once, a news article about a man who survived a lightning strike. The words teetered on the tip of her tongue; Lichtenberg figure.

They were faint at the moment.

Kass frowned deeply and shook her head. She couldn't think about it. It was just another thing to take in stride, so she pushed it out of her thoughts and gave herself a thorough scrub down with a wet hand towel and some soap.

She dressed in a pair of gym shorts and a loose t-shirt, wondering how long it would take to ruin them, just in time for Moya to call her about dealing with another substation.

Her phone read 5 am.

“Right,” she sighed. “I’ll get on it.”

* * *

Kass almost started to believe that under the current circumstances, genuine laughter was a thing of the past. Yet as she zipped along power lines and arched through the air, she found herself smiling, laughter bubbling up out of her chest at the sheer joy of it. The smooth speed and freedom of movement felt utterly liberating and sure, she needed practice, accidentally throwing herself over the edges of buildings proved that, but it gave her great delight nonetheless.

She kept busy throughout the morning, never stopping too long to let herself think until Moya called her with a new task and sent her on her way.

The Reapers didn’t bother her as much. Some took pot shots, but most only observed her from rooftops or windows, orange eyes glinting in the darkness. It was a tense sort of peace, far from friendly, but better than being riddled with bullets.

At least until now.

Kass hauled herself onto the rooftop of a corner office building. It overlooked the elevated train tracks, west harbour, and the entrance to Jefferson Tunnel. The last of which looked almost unrecognisable if Kass didn’t know the area so well. Scrap metal, barbed wire, cars and other salvaged material came together to form a ramshackle compound around the entrance, built up with walls, watch towers, and leaving only a narrow opening into the tunnel itself.

_Hundreds_ of Reapers ducked in and out of the compound’s many shelters, the walls of which encompassed the T-junction just outside the tunnel. A thin line of unmolested civilians shuffled inside, some with children held tight.

Despite the ‘peace’, Kass made an effort to stay low. She eyed the tracks where a train sat motionless, debris mounted at the front and back to block movement. Half a dozen Reapers patrolled around it, occasionally looking in the windows to make sure the hundred or so people inside were behaving.

“Okay,” Kass said upon opening her channel to Moya, “I’m at the train, what now?”

“The Reapers have people locked up in there as collateral, keep the people of the Neon in line. More importantly, there’s a chance John is locked up in there.”

Kass paused at that, wondering if this was the ‘misinformation’ Sasha mentioned. “Do you want me to break them out?” she asked, looking over at the compound.

A sharp edge entered Moya’s voice. “ _No._ You’re in the heart of Reaper territory. They’ll kill anyone trying to escape. You need to move the train to a safe location.”

“Uh, I don’t know how to drive a train, Moya, I own a pedal bike.”

“You’re a living third rail now—stay in contact with the lead car, and it should move.”

Kass grimaced, quietly hoping that the electricity—and what she was beginning to suspect might be magnetism—would keep her secure on top of a moving train car. Not that flying off would kill her, she hoped, but it would sure as shit hurt if she collided with something at that speed.

She sighed and rose to her full height. “Fine.”

Of course, none of it was as simple as Moya made it sound. Sasha wasn’t joking when she said appearances had to be kept and through a hail of bullets and angry howling the appearance that the Reapers absolutely did _not_ want the train to leave was definitely upheld to the fullest extent.

Shockwaves dislodged the debris at the front, and Kass climbed on top of the train, bleeding from a handful of bullet holes already. Power buzzed through her body from feet to hands, and she crouched low to the metal roof of the lead car, screwing her eyes shut when the bullets slithered out of her flesh and clattered at her feet.

The train shuddered to life.

Kass kept her head on a swivel, wary of the Reapers who watched her approach from hidden vantages. They could easily take a shot while she passed, and some of them did, more for show than the ones near the compound if their close misses were anything to go by. At least, that’s what Kass hoped it was.

A shot clipped the top of the train, slicing into her foot. Kass yelped, throwing herself flat and almost losing her grip when the train curved through a corner.

The bullet popped out between the bones of her feet, and she kicked it loose from her shoe, cursing.

The flow ebbed—the train slowed to a stop. “For fuck’s sake!” Kass hissed, jumping off the train. She didn’t know how to _drive_ one, but she generally knew how these old trains worked. The sudden cut off and the lack of all-encompassing pressure made it clear to Kass that it wasn’t a problem with the grid. It was a problem with the tracks.

She hit the road in time to see a group of Reapers spill out of a nearby alley in pursuit and level guns her way.

Two bullets hit her before she could throw a grenade their way. She ducked behind a pillar and cast a quick look under the tracks to see a feeder box with a line of dull red lights down one side. Usually, a worker needed mechanical assistance to reach it, but she had no such luxury, nor did she need it.

A Reaper lunged into her peripheral and Kass couldn’t finish turning. A shotgun unloaded in her gut, throwing her off her feet. Like hot wires through her flesh, pain radiated out of her belly in waves, and she threw out her right hand in a shockwave, launching her attacker across the road where they smashed into the windshield of a parked car.

Blood crept up her throat, and Kass clutched the perforated meat of her abdomen, crawling to her feet. No Reapers, no living ones anyway—she collapsed against a nearby car, draining its battery. She held in a scream as at least eight pellets snaked out of her muscles and organs, her body sealing behind them once they dropped out shining and bloody onto the asphalt.

She slammed her fist down on the car, denting the roof, snarling.

Wasting no more time, Kass ran for a pillar closer to her target, scrambling up the weather-worn metal and concrete until she could grab the supporting girders that ran underneath. One arm under the other she swung from handhold to handhold, legs moving to give her momentum and balance.

Bullets pinged off the metal just in front of her.

Kass hissed and looked down to see a new pack of Reapers running at her from the street to her right. She hung one-handed and threw two grenades their way. One attached to a Reaper’s shoulder, the other fell on the ground between the packs’ feet—the explosions sent them flying. Dazed and with their clothes catching fire, Kass only needed to fire off a few bolts to kill them.

The lack of admonishment from Sasha struck her momentarily, but she shook it off. Appearances had to be kept—that meant sacrificing the lives of her minions it seemed.

Dealing with the feeder box was easy enough; it just needed to be switched back on to let the current flow. Anyone else who tried to do it would probably have been shot dead before they got close. With that done, Kass climbed back onto the tracks and got the train moving again, curbing what little hope she had for the rest of the boxes to be active.

The Reapers mobilised around her, red hoods peppering windows and rooftops, bullets flying with intent to strike. Kass fired back in turn, struggling to keep her rage from building with every shot she took. Her shirt was full of holes and stained, the waistband of her shorts felt sticky with sweat and blood, and it ran down her legs into her socks and trainers. She almost slipped on the train because it started to collect under her.

Still, she fought through it, even when the train slowed to a halt again, and packs of Reapers converged on the streets around her. The smell of ozone and burning skin filled the air, coupled by gunfire and screams, the roars of threat and ardent obedience to the Dark Mother, the yelps of death and pain when Kass struck them down to a clap of thunder—she focused on those last cries. The sign of a battle turning, of danger thwarted. Motivation to keep going, and keep going she did, fixing the second feeder box and continuing down the tracks.

It wasn’t until a figure topped a building near an upcoming corner and lifted an RPG launcher at her that Kass wondered if Sasha had tricked her.

The Reaper hollered in triumph, firing. She reacted instinctively, throwing out as powerful a shockwave as she could. The projectile exploded mid-air, impacting the sudden pressure wave like it would a solid wall. Smoke billowed around her, and she glared at the offending Reaper when it cleared, firing off a bolt that hit them square in the face. They staggered off the building and fell to street level, out of sight and out of mind as the train continued on.

Reaper activity ceased to let up, hounding her at the third disabled feeder box, utterly shredding what remained of her shirt by the time she climbed back on the train. Blood and gun residue smeared her skin, nearly making her hands slip on the climb.

By the time she pulled into a safe station on the other side of the district, Kass had tuned out almost everything. It took her a moment to realise the train stopped, and no one was shooting her. Instead, there were regular civilians gathered on the platform, staring up at her in a mix of fear, anger and confusion.

She blinked slowly at them and jumped off the train. The people fell back from where she landed, afraid to touch her or horrified by her bloody appearance, she didn’t know and didn’t care. She lifted her hands to the reinforced doors of the train and blasted them open.

She stood back, watching the captives flood out like rats catching a hint of fresh air. Some ran into the arms of waiting loved ones, others fled the station as soon as possible, whether to their own families or the pure safety of home was their business and Kass couldn’t bring herself to care.

Something hard smashed over her head.

Kass stumbled against the train for support, vision going black for a split-second. She barked a string of ‘fucks’ and lifted an arm to shield herself. “What the hell?!”

“Murderer!”

“Cop killer!”

“Terrorist!”

Angry, jeering voices flew from the crowd and rage boiled in Kass’s gut. She looked at the ungrateful bastards starting to press in around her and clenched her hands. “Come on!” she snarled at them, electrifying her body. “You want a fucking fight?! Let’s go!”

The foremost in the crowd fell back, fear flickering across their faces as surely as the red of her powers did. Kass lifted her chin at them, narrowing her eyes. “What’s wrong? Do you need my back turned?!” She gestured wildly, sparks feathering the air with her motions. “Come on, you ungrateful _fucks_ , you outnumber me!”

No one moved towards her, but more and more people found their way off the platform, and those nearest watched her until they could run down to street level, leaving her alone without a single whisper of John, as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying the fic, please leave a kudos and comment, let me know if you're enjoying anything specific, and thanks for reading :)


	7. Dark Visions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression may have been kicking my ass hard these last couple of weeks but I lived bitch, so here's a chapter.

Moya’s stern voice cut through the brief peace of her nap and left Kass groggily reaching for her phone. The time, 1:43 PM, told her she managed to snatch a couple of hours rest.

“Yes?”

“There’s been another outbreak of that ‘nekter’ crap. I’ve sent the coordinates to your phone. Deal with it.”

Kass opened her mouth only for the call to click off. She sighed, slumping on the couch with the phone against her chest, and not sure if she expected any better. As much as Moya was motivated to find her husband, she didn’t seem all that compassionate otherwise. Cold, practical, hell, maybe that’s what you needed to be as an FBI agent and Kass had no idea how that worked, but Moya wasn’t making any effort to mask her utter disinterest in Kass’s well-being.

The idea that she was just a tool, a means to an end, certainly crossed her mind. Not that she could do anything about it. Rebel and Moya would bury her.

Her thoughts briefly went to Sasha and Kass swallowed hard, a thrill of apprehension or excitement running through her belly, she couldn’t decide.

With a dismissive shake of her head, Kass pulled some loose clothes on over her briefs and sports bra and headed out. She knew the area Moya wanted her to check out; she used to go there every other month for a jerky run. A little family run place did everything from regular beef to dried catfish.

Trish would give her extra money to come back with a sweet chilli pork mix.

Stopping in the middle of the trash-strewn pavement, Kass sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Before she could get too lost in _that_ particular thought, a familiar series of beeps ringing out to her left made her flinch. She spun towards it, and the TV Jacker’s voice spilt from the open doors of a threadbare bar.

Against her better judgement, she inched towards the edge of the doors and looked inside, seeing only a few, downcast patrons and the TVs hanging over the bar itself.

“—eing rescued from the Reaper’s clutches, and I want to make sure you get the facts right on this one because there are _traitors_ out there pretending it was the terrorist of all people who pulled it off.”

The image changed from the Jacker to a clip of Kass on the station platform, glowing with red electricity and covered in blood and rags, gesturing threateningly and shouting at a scared crowd.

A tight ring closed at the back of her throat and Kass struggled to keep her mind from racing. She couldn’t understand how he got that footage of her, it looked like it was taken from a window or some other off-the-ground vantage, certainly too far away to hear what exactly she was saying, and with a good enough lens that the footage was unmistakable as her.

The thought that someone was spying on her, not just listening to her but actively _spying_ on her, made her stomach lurch like an octopus was trying to climb out of it.

The Jacker continued over the looping clip. “Really? Does _that_ look like a hero to you? No, I’ll tell you what really happened. Some brave men and women, normal, regular folk like you and me, got sick of being pushed around and decided to do something about it. They’re the ones who got that train out of Reaper territory, risking their lives to reunite families and loved ones. All this terrorist did was show up to run them off and steal credit.”

The broadcast cut back to him in his studio, glaring at the camera. “If you hear _anyone_ trying to talk this asshole up like she’s hot shit and _didn’t_ ruin our lives? Knock some sense into them. They’re not your ally, and they’re _not_ on our side! Voice of Survival, out!”

Kass tried to swallow only to find her mouth dry as paper. She frowned and turned away, wringing shaky, clammy hands and wiping them on her pant legs.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

She rubbed her brow and found it thick with cold sweat.

Hissing a string of curses, she thumped a fist against the wall behind her. There was nothing she could do about it, and that only worsened the hard knot of muscle her stomach had become. Swearing under her breath again, Kass vigorously rubbed her face, slapped it a few times, shook her head, and got moving again. She couldn’t do anything but keep moving.

* * *

The stench of overflowing trashcans was more than enough to smother the cloying smell of nekter, but it seeped out in waves and hung in the air like a warm fog.

Kass stood across from a block of apartment buildings, arms crossed, scrutinising the scene before her. Not unlike Smith Fountain people shuffled and staggered about but they were clean for the most part. No messy stains save for a few individuals who sat slumped on apartment stairs and the pavement.

A red-hooded figure peered down at her from an unobstructed window a few floors up. Duct tape soon covered it.

It wasn’t the delirious people or the Reapers in hiding that kept her from crossing the street, however, but she swallowed her flaring nerves and crossed anyway.

Whatever Trish was trying to accomplish, her ‘patient’ scurried off when Kass approached, hissing about the Dark Mother.

“Wait—sir!” Trish called out to him, standing. “Damn it,” she hissed, turning on Kass with a glare. “And here you are again. Why aren’t you stopping this?”

The question, its accusatory tone honed to a fine, bleeding edge, struck Kass like a slap across the face, and her mind replayed the Jacker’s latest broadcast. Not that Trish needed more reasons to seethe at her.

“I was just on the way to help,” she said quickly, averting her eyes.

Trish crossed her arms, scowling. “Like you helped with the train? Or are you actually going to do something?”

A constricting ache settled in her throat again, and Kass stiffened, shoving her hands in her pockets. “That’s not what happened,” she muttered.

“Just like you had nothing to do with the blast, right?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Trish threw up her hands. “I don’t care what you have to say, Kassidy.” She gestured at the apartments. “Do something about this or get the hell out of here.”

With that, Trish turned and jogged after her patient, leaving Kass to wonder if this is what it felt like to suffocate. Her chest felt so tight she half expected her lungs to collapse. She did her best to dismiss the thought for now and began climbing the building to her immediate right.

Tape, fabric, and newspapers blocked out plenty of windows and those that weren’t only revealed dark, silent interiors. Muffled chanting came from the rest, chanting or conversations too smothered to make out clearly, and between tiny breaks came the flicker of candlelight.

A cold, stiff breeze greeted her upon reaching the roof and Kass rubbed her arms, momentarily regretting her choice to forgo a jacket. It’d just get shot to pieces.

“ _You did well with the train.”_

Kass nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around to find nothing but the sheer drop off the edge of the building. She stumbled back from it and exhaled a hard, short breath, dusting herself off.

She couldn’t talk. She even opened her mouth to do so but held it in check, hands slowly clenching and releasing. Moya was always listening to her, and it made the sting of her conversation with Trish hurt all the more. Worse than the Jacker highlighting her public mistakes, like a spotlight was being shined on her personal, private problems.

A warm sensation like a hand resting on her shoulder came over her, and she froze while Sasha continued. _“If you wish to continue this arrangement, all you need to do is avoid destroying my work. Look to the water towers.”_

Casting her eyes across the nearby rooftops revealed a curious sight. Several water towers appeared to have something attached to them, and Kass jumped across to the nearest one on a neighbouring building. The sound of bubbling liquid reached her, prompting her to climb up the tower for a better look.

A strange barrel was affixed to the top of the ladder, with a tube leading from the bottom of the barrel and through the maintenance hatch right in front of it. A sweet medicinal smell wafted out of the hatch, and the tube shifted with each pulse of nekter released into the water.

Kass gathered electricity in her hand and held it just above the surface. The water swirled with black silt that twinkled with a subtle glitter when the red light caught it, a slow and steady spiral as more nekter was pumped into the water supply. Quite different from the thick, oily darkness at Smith Fountain.

Sasha spoke to her again. _“My darlings are hidden within the apartments, inducting new converts as we speak. I understand if you wish to keep face with the snake and…”_ she paused for a moment, her voice softening, _“the lamb. All you need to do is disconnect the barrels. You stop the flow without destroying the source. My darlings will retrieve them and move on at night when there are fewer eyes. Right now, they are instructing a subtler breed, eyes and ears who can go unnoticed and strike from the shadows. It will help us.”_

Pulling away from the water, Kass inspected the barrel and determined it wouldn’t be too hard to detach it without destroying it. It clung to the ladder with a series of clamps held fast by a locking mechanism, a simple lever. A single switch controlled the pump itself, which she turned off easily enough.

Kass chewed on her bottom lip, staring at the release lever, and couldn’t stop the Jacker’s voice from snaking through her thoughts. She wasn’t a monster, and that was probably what most monsters thought too, they weren’t the bad guy, they were in the right, being _stronger_ made them right, or believing whatever _ideology_ they followed made them right.

A cold weight pulled her stomach down like an anchor.

Destroying the barrel and its contents might stop the Reapers from spreading, somewhat, _and_ piss off one of her very few allies. She appreciated the hell out of Zeke’s continued friendship, but he had no power to change the situation. Moya did, and Kass was steadily coming to the conclusion that Moya wasn’t ultimately on her side in this, which only left her with one option, unless she wanted to go it alone, and that thought utterly terrified her.

Kass pulled the tube out of the water and shifted her weight onto the ladder just beneath the barrel. She pressed her shoulder against it, curled her arm under it to grab the release lever, and pulled. A month ago and the weight of the barrel and its contents would have pulled her off the ladder and broken something. Instead, she grunted as the weight pressed down on her, hefted it into a tighter grip, and slowly made her way down the ladder until she could put it down safely.

A warm, tender sensation wrapped around her shoulders like an arm and she froze. _“Thank you, Kassidy,”_ Sasha’s voice murmured in her mind. _“I hope you come to trust me when I say this is all in the interest of bringing down our true enemy.”_

The warmth receded after a moment, and Kass choked back her protest at its absence. She ground her teeth, shaking off the desire to feel it again.

Moving on to the other water towers proved no trouble at all, with the Reaper’s attention completely wrapped up in the apartments under her feet, Kass was able to detach every barrel she came across unimpeded.

She tried to let Trish know each time she took care of one but got no response, as expected. When she removed the final barrel, she called Moya to let her know it was dealt with and got a curt affirmation before Moya simply let her go for now.

Free time, a curse as far as Kass was concerned these days.

The smell of ozone hit her like a gale force wind, prickling the nape of her neck, and Kass whirled in time to see a strange figure coalesce from a burst of pale yellow energy at the edge of the building.

It was an old woman wearing all white, a long hooded coat, pants, and dress shoes. Sleek metal encased her torso under the coat, segmented down the middle, and her entire right arm from shoulder to fingertips was covered in it too. She stared with glowing blue eyes colder than any Kass had ever seen.

Electrifying her arms, Kass took a step back and growled. “Okay, who the fuck are _you_?” And even as she asked, she knew the answer already.

 _This_ was Kessler.

“Just a concerned citizen,” said the old woman, who smiled at no emotion and began striding towards Kass with the kind of graceful force her apparent age would never suggest. “Now hold still!”

There was no time to react. Kessler flashed towards her, taking her off her feet. Icy fingers snarled against her scalp, flaring up every nerve and neuron in her skull until her eyes went white and her body hung limp in Kessler’s grasp.

Images and understanding flooded her mind, a melange of fire and blood, destruction, death, and decay. The screams of the dying echoed through broken streets, survivors sobbing hysterically at the mangled bodies skewered on pillars of smoking stone for the buzzards to feast upon beneath a blood red sky. The moon floated broken, its shattered face hazy in the smoke of a dying world as fires raged and blood flowed freely across ruptured asphalt, sizzling as magma overtook it.

Above it all, a terrible figure towered like an angry god, freed from the depths of a forgotten prison. His body was fractured, shifting and breaking like the core of the planet, a volcano trapped in the shape of a man, and strands of igneous flesh stretched between the breaks.

His eyes burned like twin crimson stars, and when he lifted his hands, fire poured from his palms. The world broke at his command, bathing it in fire and choking what life remained in the smoke of burning cities. Nowhere was safe—the _future_ wasn’t safe.

Kass dropped to her hands and knees, head pounding, and vomited. The ray sphere flashed across her vision, and she knew it was connected to everything she saw, it was connected to _Kessler_ , but how and why escaped her as soon as she thought about it.

When she finally lifted her head, dripping with sweat and trembling from nausea, Kessler was long gone.

* * *

“So, been lookin’ into your new BFF, Moya.”

Kass didn’t look up. Instead, she focused her attention on drinking an entire bottle of cold beer in one go. It washed the lingering taste of acid from her mouth, and when she was finished, she reached for another.

Zeke crossed his arms. “Are you gonna listen this time?”

“I haven’t walked away, have I?” she said, going slower on the second beer.

Exasperation coloured Zeke’s tone, and he paced in front of her on the other side of the coffee table. “Look, she’s real FBI. In fact, she’s _big-time_ FBI. Highly decorated, the kind of person they send out when the shiola hits the fan and sprays all over everyone.”

Kass hummed, not watching her friend so much as staring through the wall behind him while he continued. “About six months ago, she gets moved over to some new division called DEFENDER, and the trail goes completely cold.” He fixed her with a serious look. “Now, one of my boys thinks she’s working for DARPA.”

She hummed again, and Zeke frowned, propping his hands on his hips. “Kass, I’m being serious, you gotta pay attention. DARPA is the motherlode of black ops crap—it’s this secret Pentagon group that doesn’t answer to anybody. If she’s in with those clowns, you better watch out.”

Kass finally looked at him, slowly draining her second beer and wondering what he expected her to say in response. There wasn’t much to say by her reckoning, as far as she could see she was fucked. A walking WMD who was only getting stronger—she’d be lucky if she wasn’t tagged and bagged the second this crisis was over.

And then there was whatever _hell_ Kessler had shown her. The future, maybe, if something went horribly wrong. Or right.

Kass sighed, rubbing her brow. “I get what you’re trying to say, Zeke. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

He was quiet for a moment and settled on the couch next to her. “Well, I get that, I just don’t want those goons takin’ advantage is all.”

She set her finished beer down on the table. “I know… but I think we’re way beyond that point, man.”

Zeke put a hand on her shoulder. “You wanna just watch some old creature features? Try to take your mind off things? I can hook up my old VHS.”

Kass sank back into the couch. “Yeah, sure,” she said, rubbing her face. “And thanks, Zeke.”

He grinned at her and got up to fetch what they needed.


	8. Safety

The smell of cooking food roused Kass from sleep, fried potatoes and something meaty she couldn’t identify. She grunted and sat up on the couch just in time for a plate of food to be shoved in her face.

“Spam and potato cakes, sister, enjoy,” grinned Zeke, looking very proud of himself.

“We have potatoes?” Kass took the plate with raised eyebrows. A haphazard stack of thin potato cakes was piled onto it, dotted with diced pieces of fried spam and some green herb she barely had the wakefulness to recognise as oregano.

Zeke handed her a fork and made a wiggling motion with his hand. “One of those dehydrated, powdered mash type of mixes Trish asked me… to…” He stopped, cleared his throat, and turned back to the kitchen. “Anyway, yeah, we’ve got potatoes, or close enough. Just mix it with a little water and it ain’t half bad for making cakes. Now eat up.”

She tried to focus on the food instead of thinking where it came from or why. Zeke was right; the cakes weren’t half bad.

Clouds covered any sunlight, but it _was_ getting lighter outside.

She switched on the TV in case there were any news updates. Maybe the government was ready to step in and fucking _do_ something rather than sit around on the side-lines with their thumbs up their asses.

She doubted it.

Zeke glanced over at the weather forecast predicting a harsh winter in the making. “Like we don’t have enough problems,” he grumbled, plating up his share of the cakes. He plopped next to her on the couch and dug in.

It wasn’t until they were almost done eating that the riveting and not at all shill-like news broadcast dissolved under a series of jarringly familiar beeps and Kass’s stomach dropped.

 _“Here she is Empire City,”_ crooned the Voice, over a clear headshot of her she couldn’t remember the origin of. _“The terrorist’s name is Kassidy MacGrath, born in Pittsburgh, 1984. She’s been in and out of trouble with the cops since she was a teenager and her daddy paid good money to have her criminal record swept under the rug, but I got my hands on it.”_

Zeke snarled, “this is horseshit!”

Kass wasn’t listening to him though. She wrapped her arms around herself, fingers curled tight against her sides, and unable to look away from the screen.

The Voice continued and opened a folder. “ _I know some of you out there aren’t so sure about MacGrath; you think she might not be so bad despite everything she’s done to us already. Well, listen to this. Robberies, drugs, intimidation, arson, assault, and yes, murder. Not in self-defence, not to save someone, none of this faux-sympathetic bullshit, just pure and simple premeditated **murder**.”_

He closed the folder, scowling into the camera. “ _No consequences for rich kids, huh? Not anymore, not here, this sick piece of shit is a violent, heartless monster. But daddy isn’t around to save you this time, terrorist; we’re coming for you!”_

It would broadcast again in midday, and again at night, the fucker liked the make sure everyone saw his juiciest updates. _Millions_ of people were getting their information about her through these _fucking_ broadcasts, and now he was just straight-up _lying_. Her family was never rich, and she never got into more trouble than a night in jail or a warning wouldn’t cover.

Kass leaned on her knees, held her head in her hands, and tried to swallow the hard lump in her throat while Zeke continued cursing at the TV. “Man, fuck him! He doesn’t know shit!”

Numbly, she got to her feet and gathered her things to go outside. “I need some air,” she muttered.

Zeke spun towards her, brow furrowed. “Hey, don’t you take any of that shit to heart, you hear? You’re doin’ what you can!”

She could only muster the energy for a half-hearted ‘yeah’ before she closed the door.

* * *

An hour spent traversing the rooftops and speeding along the train tracks managed to clear some the debris clogging Kass’s thoughts. She eventually came to rest overlooking Memorial Park where a thick fog bank had rolled in from the sea to snake through the streets and smother everything.

The path ahead seemed impossible.

Kass couldn’t help but wonder if Trish doubted the broadcast, or if her anger was so intense that she believed there was some secret record of a horrific criminal past and that falling out with her parents over her sexuality and moving across the state was just a cover story.

She grunted and wiped the wet lines from her face.

A warm, soft pressure fell around her shoulders, and she straightened.

_“Sweetling, I have a gift for you. Medical supplies have been dropped outside a warehouse on the south-east waterfront. If you move now, I can guide you to them without raising suspicion. Perhaps the lamb will appreciate it.”_

Kass jumped to her feet without a word, and Sasha offered direction in the form of subtle pushes she _sensed_ more than felt. It took half an hour to reach the area on foot, even with her extra mobility, but if she could secure those supplies, Trish could reach it in far less time with the ambulance.

Navigating a couple of streets deep from the waterfront she found the warehouse, unmarked by any official or corporate logo, and moved around the back. The loading bay was surrounded by chain-link fencing, which she easily climbed, and in the middle of what used to be a stack of empty pallets lay a large metal crate. A parachute drooped off to the side, still attached by cords, and white block lettering denoted the contents. Medical supplies, just like Sasha said.

_“Be quick, Kassidy. There are many who will be drawn to this.”_

She jumped, quickly dialling Trish’s number and praying for an answer. The call declined on the fourth ring. She winced and tried again, pacing around the crate. One, two, three, declined again. Kass cursed and tried a third time, rubbing her neck. It rang for longer, much longer, and she tried not to think about what that meant. If Trish was sitting somewhere ignoring the phone, glaring at it, crying or—

“Jesus, Kass, what do you want?!” Trish’s voice burned her ears, and she flinched. “I have enough to deal with right now without you!”

Kass screwed her eyes shut and swallowed the razor fine pain flaring in her chest. “A crate of medical supplies just dropped, and I’m standing by them right now. Do you want them or not? You always need more, right?”

Silence. She couldn’t decide if that was worse, fighting herself not to fill the suffocating quiet with pointless pleas for forgiveness or reconciliation.

Just before it could choke her, Trish spoke with far less aggression and more uncertainty. “I—yes. Yes, always. Where are you?”

“Come down to Wellington Marina. The warehouse is behind a boarded-up tackle shop called Fisher’s Fancy.”

“Alright. I’ll be there soon.”

Trish clicked off, and Kass tried to take it positively, telling herself it was a small victory. All she needed to do was keep watch, so she began patrolling the fence’s perimeter, trying not to think about the broadcast and failing. Her stomach hardened into a tight knot, and she clenched her hands, sparks skittering around them.

If only she knew where the fucker was broadcasting from, she’d get him to stop. He was making her life hell, and he had to have help of some kind, getting those pictures of her, making all those fliers she kept seeing around the city reminding people what she looked like and what she’d done. As if they could forget. All they had to do was look around.

The blast was her fault.

Kass stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose.

All she did was open the package and look at the sphere. She didn’t press any buttons, twist any dials, _fuck_ , it didn’t _have_ any that she could remember. And it still exploded in her hands. John had to be right, it must have been set to go off at a specific time, and she was chosen to hold it.

No matter how many times she went over the event in her mind, she just found herself going in circles, wondering the whys until a headache formed at the base of her skull. She was getting a lot of those lately, and she rubbed the back of her neck, scowling.

It didn’t take too long for her to hear a car roll into the loading bay. She vaulted over the fence and landed on a shipping container, jumping across to another and another until she came to the middle of the bay where the supplies landed.

It was Trish, just getting out of the ambulance. Trish looked up at her arrival, looking torn between confusion and anger, before settling on a hard mask. “This is it?” she asked, gesturing at the crate.

Kass hopped down and jogged over to it. She felt around the side for a release button and pressed it, breaking the seal of the protective, metal box with a deep click. She pulled at the parachute cords, burning them away in brief clenches of electricity to reach the lid unobstructed, and lifted it. Inside the box were tightly fitted packages of medical supplies, from gloves and masks, pain killers and antibiotics, to sterilisation tablets and gauze.

Trish poured over it all, her eyes lighting up, and Kass afforded herself a small smile, knowing all too well that Trish was already running the math on how best to use it all. “This is… this is great!” she said with a brief smile. It quickly faded into a serious look, and she started grabbing packages. “We need to get this out of here right now before the Reapers find out.”

Without a word, Kass helped Trish load the supplies into her ambulance, keeping an eye on their surroundings the entire time.  But no one seemed to have noticed yet, and Kass hoped it stayed that way.

At least one thing seemed to go right today as Kass moved the last of the supplies without getting shot at or needing to fight anyone. Sasha was good on her word, and Trish had something she sorely needed.

Closing the ambulance doors, Kass wiped her hands on her pants. “That’s everything, right?” she called, turning to face Trish who had just finished making sure the crate was empty.

Trish nodded, eyes averted and rubbing her arm the way she did when something was bothering her. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s all of it,” she said. “Listen, this is going to be a huge help, so thank you.”

Kass smiled, propping her hands on her hips. “It’s no problem, really. You should get moving, make sure this stuff gets where it needs to.”

Nodding again, Trish walked by her and climbed into the ambulance. The engine rumbled to life, and Kass watched her pull out of the loading bay and back onto the streets.

* * *

With no word from Moya, Kass dedicated the rest of her day to roaming the Neon, helping people when she could convince them she wasn’t there to hurt them and _trying_ to help clinics stay afloat until they asked her to leave because she made their patients nervous. With little else left she kept her feelers out for any dead drops she may have missed.

Listening to John’s reports painted a slightly better picture of what she was dealing with, at least that’s what Kass told herself. Truth be told, it mostly just made her feel smaller, dealing with a secret society with so many resources and people on their side.

It was enough to make her head spin.

She took a moment’s rest atop the fried fish shack on Pier 22, staring up at Stampton Bridge looming in the fog like a ramshackle spine connecting their island to the mainland, and wondering if the bodies had been moved yet or left to rot.

Kass sighed deeply and scraped her hands through her loose mop of hair to retie it.

A lone, shrill shriek split the air and Kass jumped to her feet, staring at the streets. It came again, but not as a wordless wail. “Help! Someone help me! Please!”

Kass jumped from her perch and ran down the pier, crossing the street ahead and ducking between two buildings. The screaming came from the carpark behind, and a sparse one at that. A couple of trucks sat empty at the far end, and there was a black van to her immediate right. Apartments surrounded the space on all sides, leaving only a few ins and outs.

Sobbing reached her from the other side of the van and Kass jogged towards it, hands sparking just in case. “Hello?” she called, rounding the van.

Large, wet green eyes stared up at her and Kass immediately stopped sparking. It was a woman, a dishevelled and battered-looking one with a bust lip and fresh bruising on the left side of her face. She huddled away from Kass; arms wrapped tight around her knees and the thin coat that looked poorly suited for any level of cold.

Kass held her hands visible and knelt, keeping her distance from the woman. “It’s okay, I promise, I’m not here to hurt you,” she murmured, unsure how to make herself look harmless when she knew she looked like hell. “I just want to help okay. What happened?”

The woman was shaking like a leaf as she answered. “M-my baby, they took her. I was just trying to…to…” her voice cracked, and she looked away. “I was trying to get her somewhere safer.”

Kass clenched her hands but forced herself to relax them in case it scared the poor woman. “Who did this? Did you see where they went?”

The woman shook her head and sank her face into her hands, her shoulders rising and falling with the sobs. “I didn’t. I didn’t! My baby…” she whimpered. “They had masks on and hoods and—”

Something scratched the edge of Kass’s hearing while she listened to the woman’s trembling recollection. Boots on asphalt, a quiet rumble of engines, the creaks of someone climbing a fire escape—a strange plastic-on-plastic clacking.

The woman’s distraught voice brought her back to the present. “Aren’t you listening to me? I thought you wanted to help?” Her angry wet eyes sent a pang of guilt through Kass. “I am, I do,” she said quickly. The woman’s eyes narrowed and flicked to something over her shoulder.

Kass turned in time for a baton to crack across her cheekbone. A hard kick between the shoulders forced her to the ground, and she braced her hands against it, teeth clenched. She squinted through the pain, watching the woman flee into an approaching crowd of riot police.

A trap—she’d been _tricked._

Rage boiled inside her and Kass bellowed, shoving herself upright with a crackling boom that sent her nearest assailants staggering. They recovered quickly and charged towards her with riot shields, slamming her into the van.

Air rushed from her lungs and Kass struggled to get a breath.

“You’re not getting away this time, murderer!” barked the policeman directly in front of her, leaning his weight into the shield.

Kass released a shockwave against the shields, throwing the ones pinning her off their feet and making room to move. Not that it seemed to help. Others rushed in, not yet thrown off balance. There had to be _at least_ twenty of them.

Three charged at her with riot batons, longer and sturdier than the usual. She ducked under a swing for her face and delivered an electric punch to the ribs. The first man went down and the second landed a hard strike to the side of her knee, forcing her to kneel as a sharp burst of pain radiated through her left leg. She tried to get up, and the third cop brought their baton down on her back.

“Get her!”

“Tie her up!”

A rough hand grabbed her left arm and twisted it hard, wrenching her shoulder into a painful angle. Metal closed around her wrist.

Kass electrified her body, flooding the air with ozone and burning plastic, hair and skin.  She leapt to her feet and scrambled on top of the van, kicking when someone tried to grab her ankle.

Ignoring the yelling cops, Kass jumped onto the wall the van was parked against, half-done handcuffs dangling from her left wrist as she hauled herself towards escape.

“Over there! She’s right there!”

“Get the bitch!”

“Knock her down!”

Her eyes stung, and Kass pulled herself on to the rooftop. A baton cracked across her nose, and a kick to the stomach sent her over the edge. Cops on the buildings, waiting for her, jeering as she tumbled through the air and plummeted back into the waiting clutches of the wolves below—she should’ve expected it. She should’ve expected all of it. The people hated her, even if she tried to help, and she kept screwing up otherwise.

Encasing her body in crackling lightning, Kass landed both feet first, letting off a circular blast wave on impact. Those nearest went flying; some had the wherewithal to bunch together and held up their riot shields.

Footsteps rushed her from behind, and Kass spun, throwing out a shockwave to knockback her would-be assailant. Another attempted it, only to duck and plant his shield against the ground. He staggered under the shockwave, but it didn’t throw him. Kass growled and threw again, knocking him off his feet.

Her hands were starting to shake. She was sweating and starting to feel unsteady—power. She needed _power_. “Moya, if you really are listening to me, I need some _fucking_ help.”

No response.

Five cops charged her at once.  Kass threw back two, a third knocked her over with their shield, and she kicked the forth in the groin before they could get a strike in. As she scrambled backwards, the fifth jumped her with pepper spray and fired.

Burning pain exploded through her face and Kass clutched her eyes. She tried to breathe and immediately hacked as it seared through her nose and mouth, and her eyes flooded.

A hard boot came down on her ribs, and she yelped, “Moya!”

Silence.

Hands closed on her leg, and Kass kicked, catching someone in the face.  She rolled onto her front and pushed to her knees, calling as much power as she could to coat her arms in electrical sheathes. Her eyes burned too much to see, and her throat felt like it was swelling, she couldn’t breathe well, but she knew she was still surrounded. She pulsed her ‘radar’, and bioelectrical markers light up around her.

Blood slickened her lips, and she bared her teeth in a tight grimace, focusing on her connection to Sasha, and _hoping_ she would be heard. _‘Sasha! Help me! Please!’_

There were no words, but a sense of distant fury passed over her, it wasn’t her emotion, and it wasn’t directed her either.

The cops gathered themselves and rushed her again. She pulsed her radar as rapidly as she could, swung at the nearest sources, sometimes she hit them, most of the time they avoided it and struck her again. And again, and again, and again—she didn’t know where she found the strength to stand and fight, but she did. She stood and fought until her knuckles were bloody and she could harness little more than a few sparks.

Kass sagged to her knees, struggled to keep herself upright, and finally slumped to the cold ground. Black booted feet crowded around her, and the police talked over her, their voices fading in and out with her awareness.

“Good job—let’s—over with.”

“We could ju—here? Save us—porting—city.”

“Peo—need to see—ole die.”

The handcuffs closed on her other wrist.

Something landed behind the police, and before they could do anything else, they began to scream. They screamed like animals being slaughtered. Talons rent flesh and alabaster jaws crunched bone. Tentacles broke necks and twisted limbs from their sockets. Flashes of frigid red energy soured the air, sapping whatever life remained in the injured and dying.

Sasha never made a sound. Her rage swept through as a smothering hot pressure wave, announcing her presence more than any noise would. When all the police lay dead and shattered, that rage vanished, replaced by tenderness and worry.

The handcuffs broke off.

Strong arms gathered her up like a frightened child and Kass finally surrendered herself to [unconsciousness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTftSjpjJho).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song linked isn't necessarily reflective of relationships or themes, but it's what I listened to writing the last scene.


	9. A Sanctum Shattered

The warmth of a sleeping bag was not something Kass expected when she opened her eyes. Old concrete walls greeted her, along with a cold, slightly metallic dampness she associated with the underground and its rusting walkways. At her feet was a wall of pipes, pressure gauges and valves, and a door with a small reinforced window at her head. There was a desk across from her, covered in various notes and folders, and a makeshift bed next to it.

Turning on her side revealed a line of crates kept her off the ground.

There was a box next to her ‘bed,’ full of clothes if she wanted to change out of her bloody, dirty ones.

Swallowing hard, Kass touched her nose and found it wasn’t broken anymore. It wasn’t even skewed to one side. She must have healed, or _someone_ healed her. Maybe that was something all conduits could do.

Kass blinked and sat up, taking another look around. She was alone, for now, so she took the opportunity to change quickly. She threw on a pair of torn jeans, a black tank and found her bag by the door, phone attached. She paused at seeing it, anger simmering in her belly.

Either Moya couldn’t listen to her after all, or Moya had left her to die, and Kass couldn’t bring herself to believe the former.

She snatched up her bag and secured it before she tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so she stepped out into an underground shantytown. She all but jumped out of her skin upon noticing two abnormally tall Reapers flanking the door. They wore long white coats with black skulls painted on the hoods, and thick white tendrils protruded from their backs, hanging limp. One looked at her, his face pale and sharp, his eyes black like Sasha’s, and nodded, gesturing for her to move on.

“The Mother’s that way,” he said softly.

“Are you a conduit too?” Kass blurted it out quickly. She’d seen the white coats before and even fought with one, but they still managed to unnerve her.

He cocked his head, an unreadable expression on his face. “Yes. The Mother blessed me with protection and guidance. We are Grims, we guard precious spaces like this, and attack when and where she asks.” He gestured again, pointing over her shoulder. “Do not keep her waiting.”

Kass awkwardly cleared her throat and turned, doing as she was told.

There were Reapers everywhere, ducking in and out, and between a wide variety of structures, made from anything that could make a decent enough shelter from tents to shipping containers. But amongst the red hoods were regular people too, either carrying supplies or going about their business. Grims watched from the tunnel walls.

Navigating the path pointed out to her was surprisingly easy-going despite the speed people moved. The flow of bodies reminded her of a beehive, or an ant nest, everyone seemed hyper-aware of each other and moved accordingly. If everyone in her immediate vicinity was aware of her, then Kass supposed it wasn’t much of a problem to avoid her. Still, she tried to stay out of the way.

Along the path, an open space off to the right seemed to serve as a makeshift play area where many comfort items had gone. At least a dozen children amused themselves within, and they appeared well-fed and happy enough to play despite the otherwise industrial surroundings.

Finally, she spotted another maintenance door with two Grims posted outside, and one of them waved her over, seeing her through the door once she approached.

Inside was a similar room to the one she woke up in, slightly larger, fewer pipes. But Sasha was inside, standing on the other side of a table in the middle with a marked map on it, and three other Grims listened attentively to her instructions.

“Now go,” she said, seeing them off. They moved in three swift flashes, their forms blurring through the air and passed Kass with a soft _fwhip._ The door closed behind them.

Sasha stepped around the table, wearing a smile that seemed somehow strained. “You look much better, how are you feeling?”

A dozen words sprang to mind, and none of them positive. But Kass wasn’t dead or hurting, so she slipped her hands in her pockets and sighed. “Fine, I guess. You heard me?”

“Yes. I heard you. I am sorry.”

“For…?”

“I should have seen their ambush coming. The pigs were quiet, and I was distracted, I assumed they had given up throwing themselves against you. But I was wrong. And that almost killed you.”

Sadness bled into the strained feel of Sasha’s smile, and she cleared her throat, hands clasped. “I miscalculated.”

Kass moved closer, frowning at the _worry_ in Sasha’s voice. “You… you can’t be everywhere. Is something else wrong?”

The smile faded into a wince. “I fear I have shown my hand too early, but I could not live with myself otherwise. You…” Sasha paused, lost for words it seemed. She reached out a hand, and Kass slowly took it, finding it cool to the touch. Sasha clasped firmly and looked down at their joined hands, brushing her thumb over Kass’s knuckles. “You are an innocent in all this, a sweet thing with her entire life ahead of her, used as a chess piece in the game of a cruel woman.” There was a distance to her voice as if she were distracted by memory or thought, ruminating on something disturbing. “I fear I have miscalculated a great many things.”

Kass placed her free hand on Sasha’s shoulder and found the skin there just as cool to the touch. Sasha looked up at her, and for a brief moment, there was a naked softness and vulnerability to her alien features.

Sasha’s hand slipped free, holding her by the shoulders quicker than Kass could blink. “I can get you out of the city.”

The words nearly took her legs out from under her and Kass could only manage a flat, “what.”

Sasha squeezed her shoulders. “I can get you _out._ I can create a pocket of air with my nectar and walk you across the bottom of the harbour to the mainland. It is too dangerous to take more than one but I…” her voice dropped to a whisper, a hint of resignation settling in it. “It is only a matter of time before the pendulum swings back for me. If you want to escape, right now, I will help you.”

Before Kass could even formulate a response, a shattering boom rumbled through the tunnel, followed quickly by screams and gunfire.

Sasha stiffened, fear flashing across her face. “No,” she hissed, letting go. “No, no, not yet!” She ran for the door, and Kass spun, running after her. “What is it?” she asked, already electrifying her arms.

The tunnel was bedlam, filling with smoke and the smell of blood. Screams echoed off the walls, and another explosion rocked the tunnel.

Rich red energy shimmered around Sasha and she lifted herself off her feet with her tentacles, claws flexing. She hissed, “Kessler’s lackeys!” and dove into the growing cloud, pale and artificial, the kind Kass recognised as grenade smoke.

Kass paused for only a second before sprinting after Sasha. She had to help, if not for the Reapers and their ‘Dark Mother’ then for the regular people just looking for safety. Those ordinary people rushed by her towards the Warren, many holding what supplies they could grab and others holding children to their chests. But Kass would be lying if she said she didn’t feel indebted to Sasha for saving her life.

The further into the cloud she went, the louder the sounds of combat became, and Kass quickly came face to face with a lean figure in an environmental suit and face-obscuring gas mask. He opened fire immediately, sinking two bullets into her gut. Kass grunted and electrified the rifle in his hands. The clip exploded in a flash of light and black smoke, mangling half his right hand and giving Kass the opening to kick him in the chest with another powerful shock. He toppled in the smoke, and she moved on, draining a tunnel light on the way to heal.

She nearly tripped on the bodies of a few Reapers and muffled screams caught her attention just ahead.

A pocket of thinner smoke opened up, revealing Sasha laying waste to the last of four mystery men. She constricted his body with two of her tentacles and grasped the head tight with the others. Twisting hard let out a rapid chorus of wet crunches and muffled gurgling until the filter popped loose from contortion and blood spilt out. Sasha snarled throatily, and she dropped the body. It hit the ground like a sack of mulch.

Rising off her feet again, Sasha clenched her hands. “The tunnel cannot take this kind of assault. You must run.”

Kass shook her attention away from the twisted body, frowning. “Fuck that.”

Another explosion echoed down the tunnel, much louder and closer. Kass flinched despite herself and eyed the ceiling. A crack was forming. Water began to seep through.

A ball of ice weighed down her belly. Of course, Jefferson Tunnel was underwater.

Sasha about-faced, blood smeared across her mouth and talons. “The Neon entrance just collapsed. You have not had enough time to fully restrain your powers. If you do not run now, the water will kill you!”

Heavy footfalls and muffled shouting began to echo up the tunnel. There was too much smoke to see who was coming, but by the way Sasha lit up in a cloak of red energy and bared her teeth, Kass could figure it out.

Still, she didn’t feel right just turning tail. “What about you?”

Sasha’s face softened for a brief moment. “I have made my choice, sweetling. Go.” She launched herself into the fog towards Kessler’s men, and the shouting and gunfire intensified.

The tunnel shuddered, and Kass looked up again as a thin spout of water hit the ground next to her. The crack was spreading.

Swallowing hard, Kass turned around and sprinted for the Warren.  The Reapers continued to fight, taking attention from anyone who couldn’t and shepherding them in the same direction as Kass. Grims split heavily in favour of protecting the non-combatants as far as Kass could tell. It seemed to be all they could do in the circumstances.

Chunks of concrete began to hit the road behind her and Kass resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. She could hear the water rushing in faster and faster, the yelling of Reapers who couldn’t get out quickly enough, and her eyes stung.

The lights flickered out just in time for the end of the tunnel to come into view, and Kass ran with the rest of the survivors to the dubious safety of the Warren slums. The crowd slowed to a stop once they emerged onto open the street.

A wall of uncomfortable pressure latched onto her skull, forcing Kass to stumble. She leaned on her knees, breathing hard, and sweat dripped off her nose. Frightened, confused chatter surrounded her, asking what happened, what to do now—not directed at her thankfully. Her head was swimming too much to think of what to do.

The Grims took charge of the situation quickly, directing subordinates to secure a nearby building, some rundown office, so they had somewhere to hide for now.

Kass let them leave and slumped against a streetlight, trying to gather her thoughts. Her breathing came shakily, and she turned around, gripping the lamppost and propping her brow against the cold metal. As she tried to process what just happened the knot in her stomach grew tighter and tighter until she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a single, hard scream. It echoed briefly, and the lapping of waves against the harbour walls and cries of distant seagulls was the only response to her outburst.

Taking a long deep breath, Kass held it and opened her eyes, staring at the dark, flooded entrance to Jefferson tunnel, before exhaling slowly.

She pulled away from the street light and wiped her face. A tangle of thorns tried to stop her from swallowing, but she cleared her throat and took another couple of deep breaths.

The power was out in the Warren, that was something she could change.

It occurred to her that Moya had yet to contact her since the police attack and she checked her phone only to find it’d been turned off at some point. She switched it back on, and as soon as it finished loading up Moya’s number flashed on the screen. The call opened automatically.

“Let’s get one thing clear, _Macgrath_ , I can’t risk exposing the government’s true level of involvement here and certainly not for the trouble you get  _yourself_ into. You don't get to the throw a tantrum just because I had to preserve some semblance of secrecy in this fucking mess. Do you understand me?”

It took all of her willpower to not immediately crush her phone, but she clenched her teeth hard enough to hurt.

Moya’s hard, threatening voice snapped at her, “I said, do you understand me, Kassidy?”

Kass took a deep breath and spoke through her teeth. “Yeah.”

“Try again.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Good.   Now, what the hell are you doing in the Warren? Where have you been?”

Kass slowly shook her head, eyeing the tunnel again. “The Reapers... captured me while I was vulnerable and took me to Sasha. She wanted information which I didn’t give her before you ask.”

“And?”

“Some new group breached the tunnel. Guys in gas masks and suits, they were well-equipped and knew what they were doing.”

“That sounds like the First Sons. And Sasha?”

Kass squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing to keep the tremor from her voice. “I don’t know,” she said, clearing her throat. “I escaped before I saw what happened to her, but she was fighting them from what I could tell.” She opened her eyes and turned away from the tunnel, looking at the streets instead. “Listen, I’m going to head for the nearest substation and see if I can get the power up and running here.”

A note of irritation coloured Moya’s voice, “fine.”

Kass couldn’t end the call fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dustmen cometh.


	10. Limelight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kass finds that not everyone thinks she's a monster and tries to 'help' Zeke with a personal problem.

The events that brought her to the Warren were challenging but not impossible to push out of her thoughts. She couldn’t do anything about it but keep moving forward, which was why she found herself crouching over the mangled body of Dwight Rasner, Chummy Chicken line cook and grade-A tool bag.

Cold harbour air tried to banish the post-mortem stench away, but Kass still wrinkled her nose as the sweet and sour tang of decay reached her all the same.

Messy gashes ran the length of his back as if someone went at him with a pickaxe, and a deep puncture tore through the back of his hood into his skull. Kass guessed that was what killed him and called up Zeke.

“Did you find him?”

“Oh, I found him, but he’s dead.”

“What?! Fuck, Tori’s gonna flip out when I tell her _that_ …”

Kass fought the urge to roll her eyes at the disappointed tone in Zeke’s voice. She’d only met Tori a couple of times but found her far more palatable than Dwight. Especially after he stole Zeke’s car and sold it for parts. As far as Kass knew, Dwight was lucky he still had ears after Tori heard about it.

Zeke finished panicking to himself and spoke up. “Okay, can you do your little memory—ghost—sight whatever and see if you can find who did it? Maybe I can work that angle.”

Now she pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily. “Are you seriously going to take advantage of a grieving woman?” she muttered.

“Well, don’t say it like _that_ , it sounds sleazy then!”

“That’s because of it _is_ , Zeke, for fuck’s sake! Her brother looks like he lost a fight with a miner.”

There was a pause, and Zeke sighed. “Look, can you please just find out what happened? She’s gotta be _told_ at least.”

Kass wiped a hand down her face and straightened. “As long as you promise me, you’re not going to be a fucking creep.”

“I wasn’t going to be!”

“Zeke.”

“I won’t, Kass.”

She sighed and ended the call, trying not to feel exasperated with her latest reminder that Zeke was, in fact, a man, and a desperate one at that. He always did have trouble with women, like he didn’t quite understand how to approach them, and at one point Kass gently inquired if he was sure it was women he was after. That was an awkward conversation.

Shaking her thoughts loose, Kass knelt and placed her hand on Dwight’s head, focusing her powers into that now familiar burst of spider-fine filaments through the brain. Pictures flashed across her vision of Dwight’s perspective, walking behind the Chummy Chicken. He heard a noise from the trash cans, something glowing, yellow, flat metal limbs. It flew at him, pain, _panic_ , he screamed and tried to crawl away. Blackness.

Kass jolted away from the body, shaking her head again and blinking quickly. She let off a radar pulse and jumped to her feet as a crab-like figure no more than a foot or two tall scuttled into existence nearby. It crawled in a circle, paused, and started to scurry away.

Giving chase led her off the pier and across the street, where the ‘crab’ turned left, scuttling down the pavement passed several apartment buildings.

A man in a grey hoodie looked up as she drew nearer and his face lit up.

“Hey! Hey, stop!”

She wasn’t going to. She had a ‘crab’ to follow, at least until she got close enough to see what was on the wall next to him. Kass frowned and came to a stop next to him, staring at two posters, both of them red and blue.

The man beamed ear to ear. “Shit, it’s really you isn’t it? You’re doing some great work you know, putting some order back into this city.”

She nearly gave herself whiplash turning her head to look at him. “What?”

He continued grinning. He was a young-looking guy, about her age, with the kind of rough beard one expected to see in a survival situation. “Yeah, we heard all about the way you cleaned up the Neon. Putting assholes in the dirt, fighting the Reapers, doing shit the cops wouldn’t!”

Kass blinked slowly, trying to digest his words and failing. “Right…” she murmured, looking at the wall again. “So what’s this?”

He slapped his hands together, rubbing them. “Just trying something out, you know? The Jacker might not appreciate you, but those of us who do? We wanna spread the word. I can’t fuckin’ wait for the trash baggers to get a taste of their own shit.” He stepped closer and looked from her to the posters. “Which one do you like better? I can print more, and it’s for you, really, so go ahead.”

Kass swallowed hard, taking in the two posters this apparent ‘fan’ of hers had produced.

The one on her right showed a likeness of her, with a blue colour palette except for the red lightning bolt she held above her head, the other arm outstretched in a Zeus-like pose. She was poised atop a building ready to throw it down on the symbolic heads of Government bodies who had failed to protect and provide for the stricken people of Empire City. A red electric halo ringed her head.

The one on her left had the same palette, mostly blue with red for details, but there was more use of solid black to give the image a more intimidating feel. A likeness of her stood facing the viewer, her face cast in black with a pair of red eyes staring, bright red lightning clenched in one raised fist and a dripping sword held in the other. Slashes and bullet holes peppered her clothing, letting the blood spill. The names of gangs and the same Government bodies were crossed out behind her as if slashed with a sword.

Both designs had a certain grittiness to them, no matter how one went about it the situation in Empire City was a raging cluster fuck. People were dying daily, by starvation, disease, murder or getting caught in the crossfire, and no one was helping.

Except her.

Kass swallowed, trying to process the energy spent on designing the images. For _her_ , because someone appreciated her actions and wanted to show it—her eyes welled up.  She cleared her throat and quickly wiped her eyes. “The—sorry—the left one. I like the one on the left,” she said quickly, gesturing to it. The right one felt too removed from her personal experiences, harkening to some godly or angelic figure that she felt no connection with.

The young man clapped his hands. “Right on! I’ll get more of them printed up right away. Thanks!”

* * *

Finding a quiet spot to sit and breathe was a trial in and of itself, especially with the Dustmen roaming about. ‘Trash baggers’ her little fan called them, and it was accurate, she had to agree.

Empire’s homelessness problem was a long-festering wound even before the blast, left to rot while money went to the Neon or the Historic. Something had to give eventually, and The Blast changed the rules. It couldn’t have taken much to whip up such a downtrodden, oft-forgotten and scorned folk into a force to be reckoned with. It probably gave them purpose, a sense of belonging and having control over their lives.

She couldn’t begin to guess what was going through their heads, nor could she stop herself from wondering how many people were just down on their luck and desperate for an out.

Her thoughts drifted to the Reapers.

Kass had no way of knowing the intentions of the Dustmen. What she knew now was that they were dangerous, terrorising the district, forcing people into slave labour, and attacked her on sight. And their mysterious leader probably wasn’t having them attack her as part of a ruse.

She wished she could reach out to Sasha, but if she tried there was nothing, and that could mean anything.

Dwight’s killer was a brute of a man, draped in tarp and plastic, with scavenged metal welded into makeshift armour across his upper body and a rocket launcher. That would have been enough of a threat. If not for the metal crabs he cobbled together from the cage of loose scrap metal on his back.

More people with powers. She really wanted Moya to be wrong about a conduit leading the Dustmen, but the encounter dashed that vague thread of hope to the wind.

It was more than enough to process without Trish calling her. She flinched and answered reflexively.

“What? What is it?”

“It’s getting bad over here.” The worry in Trish’s voice made her heart lurch, and Kass swallowed hard. “People are dying, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“Wh-what about the supplies we got?”

“I hoped they would last longer. There’s just not enough to go around. I need to get a bus over to Bayview and see if it still has any supplies.”

“Fuck. I… I came through the tunnel, but it’s trashed. The drawbridge is out too.”

There was a pause, and when Trish spoke her voice was subdued. “Do you remember Roger Miller from Amy’s graduation?”

She had to think for a moment, worming her attention between Trish’s sadness and the flare of guilt in her chest. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I remember him.”

“Well, he’s a city engineer that used to work with my dad. If anyone can fix the bridge, it’d be him.”

“Where should I go?”

“He lives by Valentine Park.”

“Ok. I’ll try and find him.”

* * *

Finding Roger wasn’t a problem. It was getting the Dustmen off him and _keeping_ them off him while he worked that was a problem. But Kass kept him safe nonetheless, despite the bullets and the _crabs_ , and the rusty blades some of the trash baggers used when they got close enough.

She probably couldn’t get tetanus now anyway.

Roger gave her weird looks between each wave of Dustmen, but he didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. Watching someone fry another person to death and pop bullets out of their flesh probably looked pretty scary for an outside observer.

She was glad to leave his side and find his friend in the Neon, a simple matter of going to Lou’s apartment and knocking on the door since the Reapers didn’t have to keep up appearances and attack her. Lou and Roger may have been confused about that, but she didn’t need to explain herself to them.

With a final charging of the hydraulics, the bridge finally lowered, and Roger left with his friend. It was safer to crash at Lou’s place for the time being, and they both thanked Kass for her help.

It could’ve been worse.

* * *

“This super-hero racket is great, solvin’ crimes, adoring fans,” Zeke grinned and handed her a cold beer. “I could get used to livin’ like this.”

“Uh-huh,” Kass responded flatly and downed half her beer in a few, big gulps, head reclining to the back of the couch.

Zeke gave her an impressed look. “C’mon, Kass, you got a fan! A fan with friends, screw Mr ‘Voice of Survival’ and his bullshit.” He made quotation marks with his hands and grinned again. “It’s turning around!”

She didn’t say anything and just closed her eyes. It was hard to filter through what she was feeling in the moment; there was so much _everything_ right now that Kass felt like she was sinking into a bottomless pit of snakes, each one biting and filling her with more and more venom until she could barely feel a thing.

At a certain point, different pains and stresses just blended into a dense haze.

Zeke sat down next to her and patted her shoulder. “Kass, listen, you’re starting to own this place, and that fan-bro is gonna be the tip of the iceberg. The V.O.S can’t lie forever and girl, when you find him, he’s gonna be fuckin’ sorry.”

She slowly rubbed her brow and kept her eyes shut, trying to work through the mild headache creeping up on her. “Have you spoken to Tori yet?”

Zeke sounded like the question caught him off-guard. “Oh, uh…no. No, not yet. Soon though. I was gonna go over to her place, so she didn’t like, cry in the middle of the street.”

“Zeke… why now?”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed and looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Sleaziness aside, you want to try and start a relationship in the middle of this nightmare?”

Embarrassment flicked across his face, and he pursed his lips, looking away. “I don’t know. I’m just sick of always being alone, you know? Thought this could be a fresh start, opportunities everywhere, like those batteries I made for barter and the like?” He sighed and swept a hand through his hair. “Sick of only scraping by, of being a fuckin’ nobody from nowhere with nothing. I mean, shit, aren’t _you_ sick of being poor?”

It would’ve been nice to make more money. Kass could’ve been an engineer if she’d stayed in college, but that was never going to work for her. At college it was all pressure, expectation, and disappointment when she didn’t match up. Her social life was a shit show thanks to a near non-existent queer presence, and it was why her dad agreed to pay for it at all.

Kass thought she could handle it. If she just kept her head down, kept to herself, then she could shrug off whatever was thrown at her. She was kidding herself.

She finished her beer and sighed deeply. “Yeah, I guess. Not like these powers changed any of that.”

“Are you crazy? Everyone knows who you are, and you’ve got _fans_ now!”

“I’m still an errand girl, and no one’s paying me for it. I’m going to have to start stealing clothes soon.”

“You what?”

She turned her head to look at him directly and gestured curtly to the stained holes in her loose shirt and jeans. Zeke must have gotten used to seeing her like that because a brief look of guilt flashed across his face and he rubbed his neck. “Well, hell, you heal right up though, right?”

Kass clenched her jaw, exhaling the spike of anger in her belly. She rose from the couch and rubbed her face. “I need to fucking sleep,” she muttered, shuffling off to her room. “Lock the door on your way out and don’t be a creep with Tori.”

Zeke didn’t respond.


	11. Pushing Limits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kass is having a hard enough time without Zeke getting into trouble of his own...

Nightmares forced Kass outside at the crack of dawn, hounding her sleep until she tumbled out of bed drenched in cold sweat and tangled in her sheets. In her dreams Kass tried to escape the Jefferson tunnel and failed, drowning as masked figures dragged her under the water. The more she struggled, the more the masks slipped and the harder they pulled her down. Until Kass could see their faces and see that it was Trish, Moya, Sasha, Zeke, and Kessler, all of them pulling her under, blaming, taunting, demanding, accusing. She couldn’t help but wake with a yell.

Kass forced alertness into her body by draining power through the nearest socket and climbed out of her bedroom window.

For the sake of appearances, she let Moya know she was heading to the next substation in the Warren. Moya was as terse as usual, and Kass quickly got underway.

She used the nearby train tracks to speed along to the Stone Canal Drawbridge and crossed over into the Warren, where speed and stealth saw her safely to the next substation.

* * *

Considering how many of her opponents enjoyed lugging rocket launchers around, Kass was delighted when her new power turned out to be a highly condensed missile. It’d certainly make fighting armed and powered people easier for her or at least made it harder for them to engage with her, and it was just in time for Moya to call on her again.

“Kassidy, I’ve been receiving reports of unauthorised drones patrolling the Warren. Since they’re not ours, you should look into them. It also sounds like the Dust Men are planning a quarantine break.”

“They don’t expect that to work, do they?” she asked, keeping her head on a swivel even as she perched high above the street on some dilapidated office building. There were no Dust Men in her immediate vicinity, but that could change at any moment.

Moya sounded undecided but wary. “Hard to say if they’re too desperate to care or underestimate the military’s response to such an attempt, but we can’t let it happen. I’ll inform you when I know more.”

“All right.”

“About the drones, there’s a dead drop containing what you’ll need to plug in and decrypt what’s inside their black boxes. I’ve sent you the coordinates.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Yes—tell your friend Zeke to stop calling me.”

Kass’s stomach lurched. “I…I didn’t give him your number.”

The unimpressed sneer in Moya’s voice made her wince. “I don’t care. If he wants to play hero and track down ‘leads,’ that’s his business. But I don’t need to hear about it.”

The call clicked off, and Kass sighed heavily, rubbing her face. “For fuck’s sake, Zeke,” she muttered. She needed to talk to him about how dangerous it was getting. If she didn’t have powers to put her body back together she’d have been dead a hundred times over by now. One bullet in the right place on a normal person and it was all over. Hell, a good blow to the head could do it.

She scraped her hands over her scalp and retied her hair. The undercut was growing out, and she hated the feeling of it.

It occurred to Kass that she had no idea what Zeke did all day while she was running across the city.

She rubbed her face again and rose to her feet. She’d talk to Zeke when she got home, for now, she had a task.

Making her way to the coordinates Moya sent her, Kass quickly located a package left for her in an abandoned lot where the lonely, collapsing shape of an old café stood surrounded by dead grass and piles of junk. The package itself contained a heavy, military-grade looking phone.

Once she reported her retrieval, Moya sent her new coordinates for the most recent locations for drone sightings.

Trying to shoot drones out of the sky was a test of her abilities in and of itself without Dust Men interrupting her every other moment. There had to be an upper limit to how far her precision strike could reach, and while Kass hadn’t found it yet, there _was_ a limit on how reliable her shots remained dependant on how far she could see.

After some trial and error, and several dead trash baggers, she brought down the first drone and retrieved its black box from the wreckage.

Moya came through after a few minutes perusal. “Just what I thought: The First Sons are using drones to search for the Ray Sphere. They’ve narrowed their search to this area.”

Kass grimaced, stretching out her back. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Another minute’s pause, leaving Kass to glance about in silence just in case more Dust Men jumped out at her and Moya spoke again. “We can’t take the chance of them finding it before we do. Take out the other drones and collect their flight data.”

Kass took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Right, on it.”

The call clicked off, and she began scaling a nearby building, eager to use the Warren’s widespread power cables, only for her phone to activate on its own.

“I want you to listen to something, Kassidy.”

She nearly lost her grip at Kessler’s voice and opened her mouth to speak, but she was cut off by Sasha’s agonised sobbing.

 _“_ St-stop this, please! Stop it! No more, please!”

Kass’s mind went blank. Blood thundered in her ears, and she cracked the masonry she was clinging to. Not only was Sasha alive but that piece of shit _had_ her. “I’ll fucking kill you,” Kass snarled.

Kessler chuckling only heightened the adrenaline flooding her body.  “You’re going to need that anger in the coming days. There’s a lesson you need to learn and learn well—everyone has their breaking point. You, me, even dear, sweet Sasha. What separates the strong from the weak is the ability to take the beating—hell, to _love_ the beating—no matter how great the pain, never wavering from what needs to be done. Think you can remember that?”

Sparks skittered over her hands and arms, as involuntary as the painful clenching of her jaw, and Kass snarled, “fuck you.” She closed the call and finished hauling herself to the top, where she promptly vomited.

* * *

Once Moya had all the data and ended their call, Kass slumped down on top of the Coleridge Building and just stared into space.

Sasha was alive, and Kessler had her.

There had to be something Kass could do, but she was at a loss. She had no idea where Kessler’s facilities were squirrelled away and no idea what she would be walking into if she found were Sasha was held.

“Fuck,” Kass hissed, putting her face in her hands. “Fuck!”

She lay there for a good while, the city passing her by with the occasion rapport of gunfire, a distant scream, shouting voices.

An actual _call ring_ coming from her phone instead of the call opening automatically very nearly gave her a heart attack. Kass grunted and opened the call. “What?!” she snapped.

“Kass!” Zeke whispered frantically. His tone made her immediately sit up.  “Kass, I’m at the shipyards, I think I’ve been made!”

She frowned, getting to her feet. “Wait, what the hell are you doing at the shipyards?”

There was a pause, some rustling, muffled voices. Kass’s heartrate jumped, and she clenched her hands. “Zeke!”

A crashing sound made her jump. Loud, angry voices followed, and Zeke yelled, “shit, shipyards, shipyards!” The meaty thump of a fist meeting someone’s face came through, and Zeke grunted. Kass held her breath, straining to hear anything else, and a different, gravelly voice spoke. “You think you can come over here, doing what you please, _electric_ _woman_?” It sounded like an elderly man, his voice ragged with age and deep-seated hatred. “We’re going to kill your friend, and it’s going to be real _slow_.”

Click.

Kass moved before she could think. Panic gripped every fibre of her body, and she raced across the rooftops towards the shipyards. She’d seen a cargo platform, built up with containers to make a fortress. That had to be where they were keeping him. It had to be.

Images of Zeke dead and mangled flashed through her mind, her last friend in this godforsaken city. Through her frantic thoughts came questions, what he was doing in the Warren, and so close to a Dust Men stronghold, but the answers escaped her. Right now she just had to get him out of danger.

She could ask her questions after.

Reaching the container fortress wasn’t an issue but getting in was another matter. The Dust Men used the shipping cranes to perfectly move each container into position, leaving little to nothing for her to grip and cling. At some point they welded chain link threaded with barbed wire to the topmost edge, so even if it wasn’t too far away for her to clear she would shred her hands in the process and be easy pickings to knockdown while it slowed her.

Of the two cranes, both held cages, and she could see figures in both, none of which she could make out.

Her heart hammered. She couldn’t risk taking her time.

Kass swore to herself and made for the only opening available to her, an unattended entrance at ground level. It was a trap. She knew that, and she ran in any way, she had to save her friend, and she could take whatever these fuckers threw at her.

She had to.

A makeshift gate clattered into place behind her, and she didn’t bother looking back. Instead, she electrified her arms and scanned her immediate options. Thick container walls stood at least seven stacks around her, forming one narrow corridor of what she assumed to be many. Kass could only go forward, where chipped concrete dividers and a sharp right turn cut off her line of sight to the rest of the maze.

She started to move further in, and the wall of the container directly in front of her burst open.

At least six bullets punched into her flesh before she could fire back. Blood caught in the back of her throat, and she screamed, sending a barrage of megawatt hammers into the pack of Dust Men ambushing her.

A shotgunner took the brunt of her attack, shells exploding on his person, plastic bag fusing with the raw, melted mess of his face. It staggered the other three enough for her to close the distance.

Cooking the ammunition in their rifles, Kass clenched her bloody teeth and slammed a grenade under the jaw a Dust Man and kicked him over. It exploded behind her as she turned and threw the last two off their feet with a shockwave.

One of them recovered faster than the other and tried to get up. Kass lunged, slamming her heel down on his throat and crushing the soft structures within. He gagged and flailed, eyes bugging out through the slits in his hood, and he clawed desperately at her leg, feet kicking.  Kass sneered and leaned all her weight down on his neck until something harder popped and gave way under her foot. His arms fell away.

Lifting her foot, she eyed the last ambusher, too stunned to put up a fight.

Blood caught in her windpipe again, and Kass coughed, releasing a red spray onto the concrete. She grunted and climbed on top of the last ambusher, gripping his head in her hands. He only flailed for a second, far too late, and a rush of energy flooded her body, pushing the bullets from her flesh.

She rose from his limp form without a second glance and pushed further into the maze.

Two more fired at her from the safety of an overhead walkway, catching her in the shoulder and thigh.

Kass snarled, throwing a pair of hammers. The impact threw both men and shattered the walkway, raining metal pipes and burned planks. She stalked onwards, leaving the couple to whimper about their broken bodies and draining a construction light.

A ragged, hateful voice assaulted her from the platform’s PA system. “This is my island! My home!” She looked up, scanning the container edges for movement, and the voice continued. “You know how long I’ve waited for this? No one, _no one_ will stop me!”

Kass clenched her hands with a skittering, electrical charge. She recognised the voice from Zeke’s call.

She pressed forward, turning the next corner into a larger space that split into two sections.

A grenade landed at her feet.

The explosion sent her flying, ears ringing, pain scattering across her body from head to toe. She landed roughly and scrambled onto her hands and knees, dragging herself back around the corner before another one could hit her.

Kass slumped face down on the concrete, sweating heavily and breathing through the pain. It reminded her of the shotgun blast, dozens of jagged, stabbing pinpoints in her flesh that burned with every breath.

Her body’s passive healing was slow, but her hearing came back quickly. She blinked through the tears and blood and scowled as she heard Moya’s voice from the phone tucked safely at her hip.

“—shipyards. What are you doing?”

Kass pulled herself up against a container, blood seeping between lips again. She licked them clean and slowly pushed to her feet. She could hear the Dust Men calling to each other.

Footsteps and rustling plastic hurried towards the corner.

She lifted her arm and fired off a series of hammers just in time to catch a pack of the bastards. Burning plastic and screaming filled the air, no doubt giving Moya a clear enough picture of what was going on, and Kass didn’t care enough to elaborate further. She left Moya to figure it out, drained one of the near-death Dust Men, and kept moving forward.

Labyrinthine corridors took her deeper and deeper into the fortress, running a gamut of bullets, fire, explosions, traps and ambushes that left her shirtless, jittery, and blood smeared.

Dozens of Dust Men tried to stop her, wave after wave filling the air with the thick stench of burned skin, fat, and plastics. Smoke came with it, providing a macabre fog of war she readily took advantage of. She could still sense them through the spreading cloud.

Fear began to set in for the trash baggers as they realised she wasn’t slowing down. Their shouting became angry, then desperate, and finally panicked as they watched her drive her thumbs into the eye sockets of one of their fellows. She pushed until she felt the bone beneath and flooded his skull with enough power to cook his brain.

The panic made her smile. Not happy, but predatory, like a wolf smelling blood. The adrenaline had burned out, leaving only rage and terror, and a sliver of something dark and nebulous buried deep in her chest, hungry to dish out some of the pain she's gone through since the damn Blast.

She finally reached the topmost levels of the fortress, the highest walls and walkways, and her path to the cranes.

The first cage was nearest, full of people she didn’t recognise.

The ragged voice spoke again. “Tick, tock, tick, tock.”

A Dust Man rose and fired an RPG at the crowded cage. The captives shrieked all at once before the explosive hit them, sending parts and viscera flying. Smoke wafted out of the busted cage, bodies crumpled and soaking in each other’s fluids, hanging on the broken bars, and blood began to drain from the mass of ruined flesh.

About fifteen more men stood in her way, and Kass bared her bloody teeth in another grim display of fury.

Some she sent tumbling to their deaths, but most died flailing, wrapped in their burning plastics and screaming as it melted into their skin. If the bulk of their forces had failed to stop her, these pitiful remains had no chance, and she made sure they knew that.

At long last, she reached the platform housing the crane controls for Zeke and took a moment to figure out how to lower the cage. It wasn’t until it touched the ground that she drained the control panel to heal from multiple gunshots.

With her fear fading, Kass jumped over the railing and off the crane, allowing herself to freefall for most of the two-hundred or so feet to the ground and gliding the last fifty. She landed with a stumble, and her stomach lurched in a dry heave.

Swallowing hard, Kass took a moment to gather herself and stared at the choppy harbour waters, trying to rub the shakes out of her arms.

“Jeez, there is close, and then there was that. Thanks, Kass.”

Zeke’s relieved voice should have made her happy, relieved in turn, but her stomach twisted and the rage came rushing back. She whirled towards his cage, crackling, and broke off the weak lock keeping him contained.

A worried look crossed his face once he stepped out and got a clear look at her. He opened his mouth to speak, and she cut him off with a harsh, “what the _fuck_ were you doing down here?”

Zeke threw his hands up, face flushing at her tone of voice. “Just tryin’ to help out! Wanted to sneak in and see what the trash baggers were up to.”

Sparks skittered up her arms involuntarily, and Kass clenched her hands. “What the _fuck_ , Zeke?! You’re lucky they didn’t kill you like they did those other people!” She swept her arm towards the smoking fortress, leaving a trail of rapidly fading sparks in the air.

Zeke’s mouth pinched in a scowl. “What are you saying? That I need to go back to the roof and sit on my ass?”

“When there’s assholes walking around with powers and assault weapons? Fucking _yes_!”

“So, what, I’m here for a laugh and a beer, but when it’s go-time I ain’t worth a damn? That what you’re sayin’, _Kassidy_?”

She nearly lunged at him, jerking forward but holding herself back just in time. He took a step back, still scowling, hands clenched at his sides and red-faced. There was sweat beading on his brow.

Kass forced out a slow exhale and gestured at herself. “Take a good fucking look at me, Zeke,” she snarled. “I lost count of the bullets I just took for you in there. I don’t know how many people I just killed to save your ass. If I didn’t have powers I’d be fucking dead right now and so would you.”

Part of her hoped he’d get it, a tiny mote of hope that not everything would fall apart, but even Zeke had to be an obstinate prick.

He sneered at her. “Havin’ powers don’t make you better than the rest of us,” he said, spitting the word ‘powers’ like the name of a bitter ex. “Not by a long shot.”

Kass didn’t have any more words for him, she was too exhausted, too jittery, too sick with the rush of pain and healing, over and over and over again, and the light-headedness of too much _feeling_. So she just stared through him until he stormed off, leaving her to stand alone by the harbour.


	12. Anything For Trish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely no one has a good time at the hospital.

Trying to clear her thoughts by fighting the Dust Men was aimless work. Kass didn’t understand what she had done wrong, what she _said_ wrong, there had to be _something_ , but she couldn’t figure it out. All she did understand now was that even Zeke seemed to be withdrawing from her.

Sometimes it was hard to breathe, and Kass would catch herself against a wall with a hard ache settled at the back of her throat, forcing her to swallow to keep it at bay. If she left her hands unoccupied she found herself wringing them automatically, trying to control the tremors.

Desperate for something else to occupy her thoughts, Kass made her way back to the collapsed Jefferson Tunnel and the rundown office building just across from it where the escaping Reapers took shelter.

They welcomed her in eagerly, and a regular Reaper guard escorted her through the building. Supplies were everywhere but stacked, organised, with designated spaces for sleeping, eating, and socialising. Firelight from candles flickered off the walls and ramshackle reinforcements on the windows, trying to block as much visibility from the outside in as possible.

Even without Sasha’s direct and constant influence, the Reapers knew her desires well enough to take care of the ordinary folk under their protection.

Ants and bees came to mind again as Kass watched people around her. Workers, protected by soldiers, but without a queen to replenish their numbers, the hive wouldn’t last.

They needed their queen back.

Finally, she was brought to an old break room. A table in the middle hosted a map of the Warren with black pen markings all over it denoting Dust Men strongholds and supply cashes. The harsh white of a camping lantern illuminated it, and a strangely familiar face loomed over it. It was a face belonging to a Grim, as tall, pale, and be-tentacled as the rest of them, but there was something about the shape of his face that scratched at the back of Kass’s mind.

The door closed behind her once she was inside.

“The days have been harsh on us both, electric woman,” the familiar stranger said.

“Colin?” she asked, unsure of her memory, she hadn’t been around him long enough.

A thin, stiff smile creased his ghostly face. “Yes. Seems I was special. Like you and _not_ like you.”

“At least you’re alive.”

“For now.”

“Please, show me how I can help.”

Colin nodded, pointing out the nearest caches and strongholds. “They haven’t discovered us yet, but that can change any hour now, they’re getting closer. If you could deal with their forces here, here, and here, we can move our forces _in_ and take those supplies for the Dark Mother.”

Kessler’s sneering voice echoed through her mind, and Kass grimaced, keeping her eyes on the map. “Have you heard from her at all…?”

Silence filled the room for a moment, so dense that Kass almost expected her legs to break under it. She hoped that the Reapers couldn’t feel what Sasha was going through, that maybe Sasha shielded them from it. It made the most sense.

Colin’s voice came out ragged. “My… kin, the Grims, we understand what has happened to our Mother in full. The rest know she is in danger and must be freed, but they were spared our comprehension. We are closer than any. It could not be helped.” He paused, hands clenching on the tabletop. “It has been all we could do to send out scouts and stay in contact with the Neon, until recently. The pain has stopped.”

Relief wasn’t the right word. Kass didn’t think she was capable of feeling relief anymore, not right now anyway, but she felt the slightest bit _lighter._ It was something.

Swallowing hard, she took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Right. Okay. I’ll take of it.”

Colin bowed his head. “Thank you.”

* * *

Night crept over the city by the time she finished Colin’s strategic strikes and helped the Reapers begin claiming territory in the Warren. It was the beginning of a difficult campaign, one that would lead to brutal street-by-street urban warfare, and Kass struggled to feel anything beyond numb resignation. It had to be done, the Dust Men had to be fought, she had to get Sasha away from Kessler, and she had to find the Ray Sphere. She had to _end this._

With blood still drying on her skin, Kass paced atop a police precinct the Dust Men until very recently had been using as a base of operations in the area, trying to catch her breath as smoke whorled through the air, carrying with it the smell of burning flesh and plastic.

The peal of a ring tone made her jump, and she grabbed her phone, half-expecting Zeke only to see Trish’s name on the screen. Her stomach lurched to meet her dropping heart.

She answered the call.

“Y-Yeah, what is it?” Her voice came out a shaky croak, a not-all-there distance to it with her thoughts bouncing in every direction, and she roughly wiped her face.

There was a pause, a _knowing_ pause, and Trish sounded wary when she spoke.

“Hi, Kass, are you—are you free right now? I need your help.”

The hint of concern in Trish’s voice may as well have been a gut punch, and Kass pressed a hand to her mouth, choking down an involuntary sob. It was a figment of her imagination. Trish _didn’t_ care about her, _couldn’t_ care about her. Trish _hated_ her.

Finally swallowing the tangle of emotion in her throat, Kass coughed. “Yeah, what is it?” she said quickly, not trusting her voice.

Another pause and Trish slowly asked, “how are you feeling?”

Her throat tightened again. She was lying to herself, Trish didn’t care, it was a delusion, and she was losing it. Kass grimaced. “I’m fine. What do you need?”

“I’ve got the bus loaded up, and we got it to the drawbridge without issue, but the Dustmen know we’re coming. They’ll try to block our way to the Hospital. I need your help getting passed them.”

“Okay.”

* * *

Kass soared off the end of a power cable threaded across the Stone Canal drawbridge and used her static thrusters to cancel her momentum, landing just short of the bridge’s end.

Welded sheet metal formed rudimentary armour around the old city bus, and Kass wondered if it would be enough. It had to be. _She_ had to be enough to keep Trish safe.

The bus door opened and out stepped Trish and Roger, both of them looking no worse for wear and determined. Kass stepped no closer, trying to pay Trish the least amount of attention she could because she didn’t want to see Trish’s expressions.

“Kass! You’re here, we thought maybe…”

Trish’s voice trailed off as it drew closer and Kass swallowed hard, her stomach tightening, bracing for something, she wasn’t sure what. She had to wonder what she looked like, she hadn’t washed, hadn’t changed her clothes or what remained of them, and her skin was paler than ever, revealing a spider web of blood vessels at her extremities. She had to be a ghoulish sight, like the monster Trish saw her as.

She could see Trish was about five feet away in her periphery.

“Are we going or not?” Kass muttered, rubbing her wrists. The dried blood flaked and rolled under her fingers.

Silence lulled between them for a few seconds before Trish quietly said, “you’re not fine.”

Kass grimaced. “Doesn’t matter. Do you want me to stay ahead so I can draw attention?”

“I…actually, I had Roger rig up the roof of the bus with a metal mesh and a generator to keep it electrified. Should provide a non-stop source of energy for you.”

“Okay.”

Kass jogged over to the bus and climbed on, staring right ahead at the Warren. The buzz of a constant energy flow made her feel marginally better, and she was vaguely aware of Trish stepping inside the bus, but not before saying, “if you need to jump down I’ll stop and wait for you.”

They got underway, crossing the threshold into the Warren and setting off the Dustmen like a kicked hornet’s nest. Whether the bastards wanted Trish’s expertise as a medical professional or felt like their authority was being challenged, Kass didn’t know and didn’t care.

Bullets dinged off the makeshift armour well enough, and Kass quickly became thankful for the mesh under her feet as she threw hammers and fired precision strikes every other moment. It was going well at first until a lucky shot tore through her throat.

Blood sprayed through the air. Kass instinctively grasped at her throat, coughing and sputtering, the open-air touching her windpipe through the tear in her neck. She fell back on the mesh, blood bubbling between her lips as the constant flow took care of the wound.

Air came through again, and she coughed, gasping.

Pain blossomed in her shoulder and leg. The sharp metal _ping_ of bullets impacting on the bus rattled off from both sides.

Kass jumped to her feet, seeing two packs of Dust Men trying to pincer the vehicle. She snarled and threw out her hands in a wild burst of energy, releasing two large, unstable grenades that split apart in the air and covered a wide area. Rapid, crackling explosions engulfed both groups, flooding the air with the stench of ozone and burning plastic and flesh. The ones who didn’t die outright flailed on the ground, trying to wipe the melted plastic off their faces and taking the skin with it.

Only a few remained standing, and Kass hit them with the same attack, leaving no survivors in the wake of it.

But it was just one attempt amongst many more, and Kass tasted blood, again and again, leaving streets thick with bodies and burning cars, pushing through the pain of bullet after bullet as she stood atop the bus, a perfect target, because Trish needed her to.

Even after everything, she would do anything for Trish, anything to wipe away the pain, to soothe Trish’s grief over Amy, but she couldn’t be the one to do that. She had to be accepted for that, seen as a person, not a terrorist—she wasn’t here to comfort. She was here to be a weapon.

Through a veil of smoke, the bus turned a corner onto the final stretch of road leading directly to the hospital. Its towers loomed like decrepit monoliths over the dying city, and the Dust Men fell back, out of sight but not out of mind.

Kass lit up her body like an electric torch and bellowed a wordless challenge, _daring_ them to come back and face death, but none returned.

It put her on edge.

Once they were almost at the end of the road, she stamped twice on the roof of the bus and jumped off the front. It came to a stop at the intersection, and a dead silence hung over the area, broken only by the rumble of the engine. Everything else was still and quiet.

Sandbags and makeshift cover littered the hospital entrance, including a couple of gun turrets she knew weren’t set up by the military. They weren’t getting their hands dirty by stepping a single shiny boot in Empire. Not yet.

Fresh blood spilt down her neck as a bullet sliced through her right ear. Kass flinched and whirled around, throwing a hammer at the roof of an apartment building. The Dust Man managed to duck in time, but he only needed her to turn around.

She barely even heard Trish’s warning.

An exploding pocket of flame, sound, and _force_ slammed into her back, throwing her off her feet and right through a first-floor window. She tumbled head over heels in a spray of broken glass, crashing through solid furniture until she stopped in a dazed, bloody heap against the far wall.

Air refused to enter her lungs in a long, stretched out moment of time, dulling the rattle of gunfire and the activation of her phone until it was distant white noise. Kass clawed at her surroundings for purchase, awkwardly curling her legs up under her bleeding frame until she could brace them against the floor and push.

Finally, she gasped a wet, hitching breath and staggered to the glaring light of the window she crashed through, nearly stumbling over displaced living room furniture as she went.

Glass shards stuck out of her flesh from head to arms, and her back screamed with fresh burns, but none of that stopped her from focusing on one figure alone.

Moya’s voice finally cut through her stupor.

“—it’s Alden Tate, the son of Richard Tate. You better be listening, Kassidy.”

Flanked by Dust Men crabbers, an old, gnarled man stood above the hospital lobby. He leaned heavily on a cane, his scrawny, stooped posture belying his true strength as he lifted his hand to the sky and _lifted_ the bus with it.

Alden stared directly at her, letting the bus hang in the air before he flicked his wrist and sent it to the top of the hospital’s right tower. It landed with a loud groan of metal, nearly half of it hanging over the edge with Trish inside.

Blood thundered in her ears, and Kass saw red, lunging from the window, but Alden was already leaving, gesturing to his forces to take care of her.

 _Scores_ of Dust Men rose out of hiding, poking out of windows, over sandbags, and taking up position at the gun turrets, all trained on her. A message to any that would challenge their reign over the Warren.

Kass charged, bellowing a war cry. She drained a lamppost in passing, ejecting the glass shards from her body, and flung volatile, splitting grenades at her nearest targets. Bullets tore into her, but she was over their line of cover before they could stop her.

A shotgun blast peppered her newly healed back, but the pain was a distant sensation, too much adrenaline, too much focus—she had to get to Trish.

Kass whirled on her attacker, punching them in the head with so much force she vaporised the plastic on impact and broke their neck. She wasted no time in draining them, using their life energy to push out the buckshot they tried to kill her with.

New bullets struck her from behind, and she bellowed again, turning with a barrage of hammers. Dust Men went flying, tarp and plastic aflame, sandbags ripped and spilling their dry guts across the concrete.

Pained screaming began to fill the air, mixing with the growing stench of ozone, burning plastic, skin, and gunpowder.

Kass pressed forward, laying waste to each and every trash bagger who tried to stop her from reaching that bus until smoking bodies littered the hospital concourse.

Wreathing her blood and soot smeared body in vibrantly crimson electricity, Kass threw herself at the hospital walls and began to climb. She pushed herself higher and faster, ignoring the lone shots of survivors who dared not leave their safe vantages above ground and reached the top of the right tower in a matter of frantic moments.

Two Dust Men threatened Trish and Roger, standing over their knelt, cowering figures with guns at the ready. 

Kass _screamed_ like she never had before like a banshee took possession of her body and formed pure fury into sound. She moved faster than they could react, throwing one straight off the building with a compressed shockwave. The other fumbled with their gun, startled, and Kass kicked them in the chest with a hard shock.

The Dust Man fell to the ground, gun clattering out of his hands. He struggled to get up again, and Kass climbed on top of him, fists sheathed in crackling power as she began to pummel him senseless. Sparks scattered across the rooftop, fleeing from the thunderclap of each impact. Until the flesh burned away. Until the bone buckled. Until there was nothing left of the man’s face except a smoking, charred-black crater.

Her heavy breathing filled the silence, and Kass slowly pulled away, staring at her handiwork with a dull sense of nausea and a growing thickness to her throat.

A tight, tingling feeling burrowed deep in her chest, and she grimaced, grinding the heel of her hand against her breastbone.

Trish’s breathing hitched behind her, scared and tremulous. “Kass…?”

She didn’t want to see Trish’s face. She couldn’t bear it. So she stayed stock still, nails digging into her clavicle. “Are you okay?” she asked flatly.

The pause felt like a guillotine hanging over her and Kass closed her eyes, breath held in preparation for a knife in the back. But there was none, just a soft, “I think so.”

Kass turned her head just enough to tell that Trish and Roger were standing, that they weren’t bound in any way, before she walked off the edge of the building, gliding down to the street level where she could disappear between the buildings, desperate for somewhere else to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kass feels gr8. She's fine. Everything is fine. This is fine.


	13. The Arrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trish knows something is wrong. Moya doesn't care about feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression has been a pain again but I lived, bitch, so lets go!

Kass ran until she reached the ocean, falling to her knees at the waterfront where grey, choppy waters scattered against concrete tetrapods stained by decades of tidal flow and algal growth. She gripped the edge, fingers damp with blood and salt spray, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Staring at the water made her wish a wave would come up and sweep her out to sea. She didn’t have enough control to avoid shorting out.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

A soft, warm feeling crept over her and Kass flinched, holding her breath. It grew into the phantom sensation of a hug from behind, arms around her neck and shoulders, gentle pressure against her back.

_“I’m so sorry, sweetling. I feel your suffering.”_

Sasha sounded weak and rattled. Considering what Kessler was putting her through, she probably didn’t have much energy to spare, but she was using it to comfort Kass.

Bands of electricity arced across her knuckles and Kass screwed her eyes shut.

“I need to do something,” Kass muttered, forcing herself to breathe deeply. Copper and salt mixed heavily in her nose and she huffed. “How can I help you…?”

The back of a hand brushed her cheek. Kass knew nothing was there, but she opened her eyes anyway, and Sasha’s voice cooed gently to her. _“No. You’ve done enough today. Go back to the Lamb.”_

Terror clawed at the inside of her chest like a rabid animal trying to escape its cage. Kass covered her face and curled over, eyes stinging.  “I can’t! She saw what I did! She doesn’t want me anywhere near her!”

A palm pressed to her cheek, warm and supportive. _“You punish yourself for nothing. Go back. You need to rest somewhere safe. Please, rest.”_ Sasha’s presence receded like an exhausted sigh leaving the lungs. She didn’t want to go, and she couldn’t help it.

The cold spray of the sea replaced Sasha’s warmth, and Kass shivered in its absence, slowly, numbly climbing to her feet. She stared at the waves, rising, cresting, rolling, and breaking, and turned to begin slowly walking back to the hospital. No one tried to stop her, and she supposed the Dust Men were too busy licking their wounds.

Most of the bodies were moved in the time it took her to come back. Scorch marks and melted plastic stuck to the ground were harder to get rid of, but the immediate threat of decomposing bodies was gone.

EMTs and other weary hospital staff worked quickly to set up treatment areas with their limited supplies, and whether through sheer presence and expertise or the absence of senior staff, Trish organised it all. Kass suspected both to be the case and avoided the hustle and bustle. She slipped surreptitiously into the hospital and found herself a quiet, out of the way corner she could stuff herself and snatch a few hours of sleep.

It was all she needed. Just a few hours and then she would go.

* * *

It was with a gentle shaking of her shoulder that Kass jolted awake, instinctively lifting a sparking hand in the direction of whoever was touching her in a moment of half-asleep panic.

“Kass, it’s just me!”

A lead weight filled her belly at Trish’s voice, and Kass dropped her hand, sparks fading. She didn’t look. She _couldn’t_ look, so she froze instead, staring at the supply closet wall. The smell of cleaning products was everywhere.

“I just,” she started, and her breath caught, threatening to break. “I just needed somewhere safe to sleep. I’ll leave.”

A warm hand closed on her wrist before she could finish standing and Kass immediately understood what a deer in headlights felt like.

Trish spoke firmly, “don’t. Please.”

The urge to run swelled up inside Kass, but she obeyed. She kept her eyes averted and silently complied when Trish began to lead her away, taking her to a bathroom for long-term patients. Disinfectant clung to the air, and clinical florescent light bounced off the white tile walls.

Thin whorls of steam rose from a basin of water by the shower. They must have heated it by fire, small comforts for a suffering populace.

Only Kass’s shoes, bag and phone were worth setting aside, everything else she wore was too tattered and dirty to do anything but discard. She stood compliant and quiet in the stall as Trish slowly and methodically went about washing the blood and grime from her skin with a sponge.

The burnt, coppery ozone smell Kass carried with her steadily melted away under the nondescript cleanliness of antibacterial soap until the last of the ruddy water slipped down the drain between her feet.

Kass didn’t move. Not until she was told. Not until she knew what the right thing to do was. She didn’t want to upset Trish, to upset this moment of peace because she needed it.  God, she needed it. But Trish didn’t say anything. She took a clean towel and wrapped it around Kass’s damp body, carefully patting her dry, occasionally pausing to frown at the dark, raised Lichtenberg figures crawling across Kass’s skin. They’d grown more prominent, just like the red hue of her lightning and the unhealthy pallor of her skin.

Out of the bathroom, Trish sat her down on an exam table and carefully looked her over. The more Trish looked, the more her features shifted from a professional mask to something else. Her mouth pulled into a tight, flat line, her brows drew together, and when she finished she let out a long sigh, slowly chewing her lip with arms folded.

Still, Kass said nothing. She kept eyes safely away, waiting for the peace to break.

Trish took a breath and Kass tensed. “I’m sorry.”

Kass blinked.

That was a hallucination. It had to be.

Warm hands touched her shoulders, her neck, and her head. Kass didn’t fight when they pulled, not to the cold, uncaring floor where she expected but into Trish. The soft, thumping rhythm of Trish’s heart met her ear and gentle arms looped around her head and shoulders.

Something burst inside her, whether her heart or the breath she held, Kass trembled all the same as her eyes flooded to a useless blur and her breathing came quick and broken. She tried to grab something solid to ground her, but her arms failed to cooperate, and Trish held her tight as she went limp and began to cry. Trish held her close for as long as it took her messy, wailing outpour to slow to a sniffling trickle. Until it was safe to let go and help Kass wash her face.

Kass barely noticed being led to a breakroom, Trish’s hands on her shoulders, encouraging her to curl up on a worn old leather couch. She was out as soon as she settled.

* * *

Good sleep eluded her so frequently the last few weeks that Moya’s voice jolting her awake felt especially jarring.

Kass nearly swatted her phone off the coffee table, squinting out from under the blanket, keeping her warm. It took her a moment to realise where she was. It took her longer to remember last night and what Trish did for her.

It wasn’t a dream.

There was a folded set of clothes on the table next to her phone, which looked to be a simple shirt, bra, briefs, and cargo shorts.

“This isn’t the time to be sleeping in, MacGrath. My sources say they’re going to try and arrest Alden.”

Every thought in Kass’s mind instantly scattered. She snatched up her phone, eyes wide and stomach twisting into a knot.

“Excuse me?” Her voice came out dry and harsh.

“ _Listen_ , this time. What’s left of the ECPD has regrouped at the Eagle Point Penitentiary to keep the prison population secure and consolidate strength.”

“Alden.”

“I’m _getting_ to that, Kassidy. He’s been spotted out in the open, so they’re going to try and bring him in. What I need y—”

Kass snarled, “no!” and stood up, her free hand clenched and shaking at her side, heat flushing her face, prickling the back of her neck. “He sets up this miserable little dictatorship enslaving and executing people, and he gets fucking _arrested_?”

The crack of batons across her face, the jeering voices, the clacking of riot gear and the heavy clump of crowding boots—Kass struggled not to spark off then and there as it came rushing back to her.

They didn’t even _try_ with her.

She blinked away the hot sting in her eyes and yelled into her phone, “where the _fuck_ was _my_ arrest? Why was it open season on _me_ but _he_ gets fucking arrested like some white-collar asshole?!”

Moya was quick and icy in her response. “Instead of pissing off you’re _only_ shot out of the city, you should ask the police when you get the chance. I need you to hit them where they live. You need to go directly to the tent city, at the base of Alden’s tower, and stir up as much trouble as you can. They need to be distracted so the police can do their job.”

Kass clenched her teeth, her guts roiling with heat. “You want me to _help them_.”

“You _will_ help them if you don’t want me to bury you, MacGrath.  We could learn a lot from Alden alive and if you can’t stow your pride—”

“My _pride?_ They tried to kill me!”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

A crawling sensation swept across Kass’s skin like termites made of ice, chewing at her knees to try and buckle them under the sheer callous disregard Moya had for her. She remained standing, but when she failed to say anything after five seconds stretched out around her like suffocating cling film, Moya broke the silence.

There was a strange quality to Moya’s voice when she spoke next. It was almost a quiet growl, but smooth, firm, and very, very dark. “I hear Miss Dailey is doing an admirable job with the Bayview.”

Kass’s stomach dropped. All sensation fled her body. “I’ll go, I’m going,” she blurted it out, the words rushed and clumsy on her tongue.

A pause, just long enough to let Kass agonise over what exactly Moya had at her disposal, and Moya ended the call with a terse, “good.”

Swallowing the bile bubbling at the back of her throat, Kass dressed quickly and jumped out of a breakroom window.

* * *

Gunfire filled the air as soon as she arrived at the edge of the Dust Men’s tent city, a sprawling shantytown perched on what was once a park, one of the few places folks in the Warren could go to get away from the smog and poor conditions of the district. Not that the park was so much better, it suffered the same lack of resources or care, used by drug dealers or the homeless.

The Dust Men made it their haven in a city that never treated most them with dignity or kindness.

Kass attacked it with all her strength.

An opening barrage of clustering megawatt hammers sent flaming bodies and scavenged housing flying in all directions, giving her space to rush through the southern gates and get behind a concrete divider. Shouting followed, startled and angry, calling out to the wailing voices of the dying.

“She’s here. She’s here!”

“Electric woman!”

“Bring everyone!”

“No, Alden needs them! We can handle her!”

Kass grit her teeth. She had to get them scared enough to leave Alden exposed.

Letting off a few radar pulses caused the shantytown to light up around her in dozens of jury-rigged powerlines, fuse boxes, and all the vulnerable lights and equipment attached to the system.

Scrap metal and chainlink shored up the platforms and walkways, the ramshackle watch towers with industrial construction lamps serving as spotlights. Kass was more interested in what wasn’t reinforced, the shacks of plywood and plastic, the scrap wood from wherever it could be pried away from—she assumed most of it wasn’t treated. There was only so much one could steal in a closed-off city before there was nothing left.

Eyeing the junk tower looming in the distance, Kass bared her teeth. If anything, all the best protective measures would have gone _there_.

Concrete dust sprayed around her, bullets chipping off the top-most edge. Kass sank and blindly threw a splitting grenade over her shoulder. She moved as it went off, jumping through the thin haze of smoke towards the oncoming Dust Men.

Ozone cut a sharp, sweeping divide between her and the smell of bodies hitting the ground, mingling with the coppery tang of blood on her tongue and the intense burn of bullets in her flesh, and Kass pressed on all the same.

Blood and soot already stained the new clothes and guilt pawed at Kass like a puppy at a closed door. Trish must have left them for her, but someone else could have used them. She would only waste them.

Shaking off the thought, Kass fought until the southern gate was out of sight, winding her way through uneven and maze-like streets. She only stopped when her radar revealed a large, tangled mass of power off to her right.

A larger shack stood apart from the others with a utility pole emerging from the centre. Power lines went off in all directions, connecting to countless homes and structures throughout the park.

She ducked inside, finding a jury-rigged control room for the entire shanty, the guts exposed to her like an upturned belly waiting for a knife. Dozens of cables corded together ran from the stolen electrical equipment to the pole, and Kass wrapped her hands around them.

Shouting drifted in from outside, panicked and angry.

“She’s in the grid shack!”

“Stop her!”

Kass grimaced. It was time to see how loyal the Dust Men were.

Releasing an atrociously high surge into the powerlines, Kass held on tight as sparks burst from the surrounding equipment, showering her in white-hot flashes of pain. Something exploded high above her, followed by a rapid series of _pops_ and _bangs_ in all directions. She held on, and something else exploded off to her far left, staccato snaps, another explosion—an ammunition cache, perhaps. Whatever it was, Kass continued, trying to maximise the damage before the cables burnt out in her hands.

Footfalls charged the shack, extremely heavy footfalls. Something metal and massive burst through the door, breaking the frame and thin walls, sending shards of cheap wood everywhere. Large metal fingers from a single, colossal hand clamped over her shoulders and wrenched Kass away from the ruined equipment, throwing her hard.

All Kass made out was a towering figure of shifting metal and yellow energy before she crashed through a shack roof. The sheets of corrugated metal gave easily under the force of her arrival, and she did her best to shake off the pain, quickly pulling herself from the broken home.

Something soft gave way under her hand, and Kass looked down to see a filthy teddy bear.

 _‘I need you to hit them where they live.’_ Moya’s words echoed through her mind, sending chills down her spine. The idea of the Dust Men having families or loved ones hadn’t crossed her mind, but the tent city would be the place to keep them safe.

Or so they must have believed.

Kass swallowed hard and finished climbing out of the shack. She took a moment to glance at the dozens of separate fires spreading through the shantytown, briefly wondering where the Dust Men kept their children—she hoped far away—before focusing on what threw her.

A hulking, humanoid figure of yellow energy stood at the collapsing ‘grid’ shack, wrapped around a much smaller human, no, _conduit_ , floating in the centre. Sliding layers of scrap metal formed a suit of interlocking armour around him, only giving him enough gaps to see her. He charged towards her, bellowing;

“Monster!”

Kass bared her teeth and met the charge head-on. She dove under his first swing, firing a rocket directly into the chest. He stumbled, swinging again, and she was already gone. Kass kept light on her feet and tried to put distance between them, only for bullets to fill that space, following her.

Dust Men swarmed from her right, firing once they had clear shots at her, and she snarled, throwing out two cluster grenades. She spun and ran, leaving them to explode, listening to the screams and the heavy footfalls of the suit conduit following her.

 _Fighting_ wasn’t the point. Distraction was—she needed to keep moving for that. Any Dust Man that tried to stop her she swiftly put down, cooking the ammunition in their guns or melting the plastic hoods to their faces and leaving them to deal with that. A few bullets sneaked in, of course, a few punches, a few stabs, more painful invasions of her flesh to shrug off like bug bites because she had to.

Maybe she deserved the pain.

Maybe ‘monster’ was right.

It took frightfully little time for the air to thicken with smoke, the fires jumping from structure to structure with speed Kass wasn’t expecting, ushered along by cheap materials and smothering proximity. It didn’t take long at all for a fearful pitch to join the angry screams of Dust Men.

Kass couldn’t slow down. The suit conduit followed her relentlessly, crashing through collapsing structures and shrugging off the rising heat. She headed north towards the tower, where she could see a sharp divide in the shantytown.

A stream looped through the old park, forming a couple of ponds along the way. The Dust Men had walls everywhere but no bridges across the water, at least none that she could immediately spot.

Running hard, Kass threw her hands out behind her and fired two shockwaves directly into the ground as she jumped. She cleared the gap in one long arc and landed with a tumble on the other side.

Some splinters dug into her left hand, but she ignored it and scrambled upright, looking behind her. Most houses on the other side of the stream were blazing, rooves sagging and tipping inwards, tarps and other plastic fizzling and catching on the hot updrafts.

The suit conduit’s form came running through the smoke.

He didn’t slow down.

Kass braced herself, gathering her energy into a tightly condensed disc she held to her chest, hands and arms crackling violently.

The metal man jumped, smoke trailing off his armour. He would make it, but only just, landing on the very edge. Kass thrust hard, slamming her shockwave into the towering construct with enough force to unbalance it. She threw another, and he began to tilt backwards, swinging his arms out in a futile attempt to stop gravity from doing its job. One more shockwave and he tipped back, falling twenty feet to the stream below.

Water sprayed into the air, slipping through the ever-shifting plates and soaking the man beneath. Kass loomed over the edge and unleashed a stream of electricity directly into the water around him. He jolted, and the armour jolted with him, mirroring his jerking and shuddering movements as the power of a lightning bolt shot through his body every second. A brief, juddering scream snaked out of his throat and died just as quick, regressing into uncontrolled gibbering, his nerves overloaded and misfiring, burning out.

The yellow energy blinked out, and the scrap metal dropped into the water, pushing his limp body beneath the surface.

Terrified screaming and the roar of the fire smothered everything else, every other smell and sound dominated by a melange of death, heat, and panic.

Moya’s channel crackled to life on her phone and Kass staggered back from the edge.

“The police have Alden in custody and are transporting him to Eagle Point. It won’t be long before the Dust Men realise what’s happened and they’re not going to be happy about it. Get out of sight and be ready to move again.”

Kass pawed at her throat and turned away from the fire. “Right,” she croaked, breaking into a run. She ran from the heat and the screams, and the bullets of Dust Men fast arriving at the scene. When she reached the edge of the shantytown, she threw herself over the wall and kept running.

At that moment, she would run forever if she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kassidy would like a divorce, Moya.


End file.
